Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely,

Saltburn and Marske-by-the-Sea Urban District Council Bill [Lords].

Bill to be read a Second time.

Aldridge Urban District Council Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

MINING ACCIDENTS.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that, owing to the increase of coal-cutting machines, accidents to workmen are becoming more prevalent; and will he instruct His Majesty's inspectors to make a special report on this aspect of coal-mining to see if some way can be found to reduce the number of accidents?

The Secretary for Mines (Captain Crookshank): The development of mechanised methods of coal-mining has introduced certain risks not associated with hand-getting methods: and it is largely for this reason that the Royal Commission on Safety was appointed. His Majesty's inspectors have, of course, already given very full evidence before it.

Mr. Tinker: Is the Minister aware that recently there have been several fatal accidents where men have been drawn into the machines? Does he not think that some steps ought to be taken to prevent that sort of thing?

Captain Crookshank: I think I have answered the general question in the answer that I have given.

Mr. T. Smith: Will the Minister consider the classification of separate statistics of accidents due to machinery?

Captain Crookshank: That is a little distant beyond the question on the Order Paper. Actually, we are doing that this year.

Mr. Gordon Macdonald: Is it not possible to expedite the report which will deal with this kind of case?

Captain Crookshank: That is for the Royal Commission and not for me.

Mr. Macdonald: In view of the importance of this question, cannot the hon. and gallant Member give the Royal Commission a hint that an early issue would be welcomed by him?

WOMEN EMPLOYÉS.

Mr. Day: asked the Secretary for Mines, the number of women and girls employed at coal mines pit heads in Great Britain for the 12 months ended to the last convenient date, and details of their employment?

Captain Crookshank: 3,170 women and girls were employed at mines under the Coal Mines Act in Great Britain on 31st December last, of whom 2,324 were wage-earners and 846 clerks and salaried persons. The great majority of the wage-earners are in Scotland and Lancashire, where female labour is employed at the screens. I should, perhaps, remind the hon. Member that employment of women underground has been illegal in this country since 1842.

Mr. Day: Can the Minister say exactly what the women outside clerical work are employed at?

Captain Crookshank: I have said that a large majority of them are employed on the screens and a very considerable portion are employed off the screens.

Mr. Day: On what are the great majority of the women employed?

Captain Crookshank: I have said that the screens are one section of work and the cleaning of offices, charwoman's work, is the other.

CONVEYORS, COUNTY DURHAM.

Mr. W. Joseph Stewart: asked the Secretary for Mines (1) the number of coal conveyors used in the Durham coalfield during the years 1935, 1936, and 1937, respectively;

Durham.


Year.
Number of
Total Number of Conveyors.
Quantity of Coal cut by Machinery.



Coal-face Conveyors.
Gate Conveyors.








Tons.


1935
…
…
332
120
452
11,481,710


1936
…
…
353
126
479
12,379,616


1937
…
…
380
143
523
13,311,246

CONFERENCE, GENEVA.

Mr. W. Joseph Stewart (for Mr. Ritson): asked the Minister of Labour the number of representatives he has appointed to represent the various interests of the coal industry at the tripartite conference at Geneva on 1st May?

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Brown): Yes, Sir. The delegation to this conference will consist of one Government delegate accompanied by three advisers, one employers' delegate accompanied by four advisers, and one workers' delegate accompanied by two advisers.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTH AFRICA (HIGH COMMISSION TERRITORIES).

Mr. Ammon: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he is yet in a position to make any statement as regards the discussions with the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa relating to the High Commission Territories in South Africa?

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can now make a statement on the subject of recent discussions with the Government of the Union of South Africa on the High Commission Territories?

The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): Yes, Sir. As a result of these discussions the

(2) the number of tons of coal cut by coal-cutting machines in Durham County during the years 1935, 1936, and 1937, respectively?

Captain Crookshank: As these questions involve a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, answer them together by circulating a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the information:

Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa and I have agreed upon a joint statement, which I propose to make, with the Speaker's permission, at the end of Questions.

At the end of Questions:

Mr. MacDonald: General Hertzog and I took the opportunity of his visit to England in May and June last to discuss the situation in regard to the transfer to the Union of the Government of the High Commission Territories and have since continued our communications on the subject. As regards the principles involved, His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom entirely accept the view expressed by General Hertzog in a speech in London in May, 1935, that Section 151 of the South Africa Act (which deals with the transfer of the Government of the High Commission Territories to the Union) has a meaning and intention. His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom fully recognise the significance of the Section and do not seek to minimise it. At the same time the position of the United Kingdom Government is also governed by the pledges which were given during the passage of the South Africa Bill through the United Kingdom Parliament in 1909, namely, that transfer should not take place until the wishes of the natives of the Territories had been most carefully considered, and that before such transfer the United Kingdom Parliament should be


given the fullest opportunity of expressing its views.
Bearing these fundamental conditions in mind, General Hertzog and I have been jointly studying what is the best and most practical course to pursue. We have especially had under consideration the progress made with the policy of cooperation adopted three years ago, the aim of which as set out in the Aide Mémoire of 1935 was to demonstrate to the peoples of the territories that "the Union Government are working in concert with the local administrations with a real and generous desire to develop and improve conditions in the territories." It seems to us that, putting aside for the moment large financial schemes, there is room for a closer co-operation on lines which have not yet been fully explored. We have therefore agreed to constitute a standing joint advisory conference consisting of the Secretary for Native Affairs and two other officers of the Union Government together with the Resident Commissioners of the three High Commission Territories, whose function it will be to study openings for co-operation between the Union Government and the administrations in matters affecting the development of the territories and to consider any matters of joint concern to the Union and the territories such as prevention and control of animal diseases, marketing of produce, prevention of bubonic plague, etc. The establishment of this Advisory Conference would not, of course, affect the present responsibility of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom for the government of the territories.
It has also seemed to us desirable that the peoples of the territories should have before them a clear picture of the terms on which the transfer of the Government would take place, if decided upon. Such terms would naturally follow closely the provisions of the Schedule to the South Africa Act of 1909, but it seems to us important that His Majesty's Government in the Union should set them out in a more convenient and more complete form, so that the peoples of the territories may appreciate the conditions under which the territories would be governed, the position in regard to the maintenance of the tribal institutions of the natives, the economic advantages which the Union

Government anticipate would accrue to the peoples of the territories and any other relevant matters. It has accordingly been arranged that memoranda should be prepared by the Union Government setting forth the terms which they would propose and that these memoranda should be made available for the information of the native and European inhabitants of the territories. We feel that this step will be very helpful in clarifying the whole question.

Mr. Ammon: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any idea when he proposes to appoint the advisory committee; and will he receive their report before any further action is taken and see that it is brought before the House?

Mr. MacDonald: The advisory conference is simply concerned with the details of technical questions outlined in my statement. That conference will be appointed at the earliest possible date, and naturally before taking decisions on matters which come within the purview of that conference, I should like to consider any report or any comment that they wish to make on the matter.

Mr. Lunn: Will it be possible for Members of the House to have copies of the memoranda which are to be made for the guidance of the advisory conference?

Mr. MacDonald: The memoranda are not for the guidance of the advisory conference but for the information of the inhabitants, native and European, within the Territories. They are being prepared by the Union Government, and I do not anticipate that they will be published at a very early date, but certainly, as soon as they are available, I will propose that they should be published in a form which made them easily available to Members of the House.

Mr. Riley: Will there be representatives of the native populations on the advisory conference?

Mr. MacDonald: My statement says that the advisory conference will consist of three officials from the Union Government and the three resident commissioners of the Territories. Naturally the three resident commissioners, who are responsible for government in the Territories and for looking after the interests of the natives, will be well aware of those interests and what they may require.

Mr. Riley: That was not the point I was putting. It was whether on the advisory conference there will be an actual representative of the natives?

Mr. MacDonald: There will be no representation of the natives as such, but that does not mean that the natives' interests will go unrepresented.

Sir Percy Harris: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider publishing a White Paper giving all the relevant points of the history of this matter?

Mr. MacDonald: I will certainly consider that, but it might be more convenient if it were postponed until the memoranda are ready.

Mr. H. G. Williams: May I ask whether the decision to advise natives what will happen when the Territories have been transferred implies a decision that the responsibility for the Territories should be transferred of the Government of the Union, and, if not, why are these memoranda being published?

Mr. MacDonald: The statement says that we recognise the significance of Section 151 of the South Africa Act in which the question of transfer is referred to. There is no further commitment in anything which has happened since beyond the commitment in that section.

Mr. Williams: May I press my right hon. Friend? Why tell the natives what is going to happen unless a decision has already been made that it should happen?

Mr. MacDonald: I think I can describe the situation in this way. There is a good deal of uncertainty as to what would happen to the Territories in a case of transfer. There is even uncertainty as to whether the Union Government would propose to abide by all the provisions of the Schedule to the Act. I think that the memoranda which are being prepared will serve an extremely useful purpose in removing any uncertainty on that question.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: Do the Government contemplate sooner or later the extension to these native Protectorates of the present native policy of the Union Government?

Mr. MacDonald: I think that all those considerations must wait until we see what is contained in these memoranda which are being prepared.

Mr. Ellis Smith: During the consultations which the right hon. Gentleman had, was consideration given to the large amount of anti-British propaganda which is being carried out, and, if not, will consideration be given to the need for counteracting it?

Mr. MacDonald: I am not aware to what anti-British propaganda the hon. Member refers. These communications were concerned solely with the situation in the High Commission Territories. I am not aware that anti-British propaganda is going on.

Mr. Paling: Can we know why there is no African on this Advisory Conference?

Mr. MacDonald: If the hon. Member will study the reply he will see that the advisory conference is concerned with a good many subjects which can best be considered by experts. I think the composition of the conference is such as will best facilitate an examination of the problems which it will have before it.

Mr. Attlee: Is not a native an expert on the way in which natives live?

Mr. MacDonald: There are all sorts of experts, but they will not all sit on this conference. We have tried to constitute a body which is sufficiently small but sufficiently expert to do the work of the conference expeditiously and thoroughly.

Mr. Paling: Is not the decision to be taken by this conference one which will affect vitally the lives and the welfare of all the natives in those Protectorates, and may it not ultimately mean that they will be taken under the control of the South African Government, with all that that will mean in view of that Government's native policy? Seing that it is so vital to the natives, why cannot they have direct representation there?

Mr. MacDonald: I fully appreciate what hon. Members have in mind, but I do think that the resident commissioners and the other members of the conference are adequately equipped to look after the interests of the natives. If we were to accept the principle that one interest should receive special representation as such, we should be bound to accept the contention that other interests should also have representation.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

RUBBER FOOTWEAR (IMPORTS).

Mr. H. G. Williams: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that nearly 2,500,000 pairs of rubber footwear have been imported in the first two months of this year from Empire countries; and what steps he proposes to take to safeguard the interests of United Kingdom manufacturers against this competition?

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Oliver Stanley): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Imports of rubber footwear from the Colonies are accorded entry free of duty by the Import Duties Act, and free entry for Canadian footwear is provided for in the Agreement concluded with Canada last year. I am ready to give what help I can in regard to any proposals the industry may make for a trade arrangement with the other Empire industries concerning the marketing of rubber boots and shoes in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Lyons: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any reciprocal free entry of this article manufactured in this country, into any one of the Colonies and Dominions?

Mr. Stanley: Perhaps the hon. and learned Member will put that question on the Order Paper.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Does that mean that the President of the Board of Trade will not support the foreign heels?

ANGLO-GERMAN TRADE.

Mr. Day: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will give in detail the value of domestic merchandise exported from the United Kingdom to Germany and from Germany to the United Kingdom for the 12 months ended at the last convenient date?

Mr. Stanley: During the year 1937, the declared value of exports of United Kingdom produce and manufactures registered as consigned to Germany amounted to £21,624,000, while imports from Germany were valued at £36,188,000. If the hon. Member desires a detailed statement of the commodities entering into the trade between the two countries, the most

recent published particulars relate to the year 1936 and will be found on pages 324 to 335 of Volume IV of the "Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom" for 1936. The December, 1937, issue of the "Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom" contains provisional figures for 1937 in respect of the more important commodities.

Mr. Day: Do the figures contain the quantities of goods left in bond and re-exported?

Mr. Stanley: I cannot say, without notice.

Mr. Shinwell: Has the Minister any proposal for correcting the adverse balance of trade between the two countries?

Mr. Stanley: Payments are regulated by the Anglo-German Payments Agreement of November, 1934. The hon. Member realises that Germany owes a considerable amount of money to this country, which enters into consideration.

Mr. Shinwell: Has the right hon. Gentleman any proposal for correcting the adverse trade balance?

Mr. Stanley: If the hon. Member has any proposals for increased Protection in this country, I shall be glad to hear of them.

GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES (TRADE AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS).

Mr. Chorlton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in the negotiations now going on with the United States of America, representatives of trades concerned are allowed to appear before the Board and give such evidence as they may desire, as those of other countries do, or whether the officials of the Board of Trade do it for them?

Mr. Stanley: I am not clear as to the exact point to which my hon. Friend's question is directed, but I would refer him to the answer which I gave to a question by the hon. Member for Bradford, East (Mr. Hepworth) on 22nd March. I then explained that information had been received from representatives of every industry in this country likely to be affected by the negotiations with the United States.

Mr. Chorlton: Will those who are to give evidence give it direct, or will it be given secondhand?

Mr. Stanley: I am afraid that I am still in the difficulty that I was in when I drafted a reply to the question. I do not understand what the hon. Member means. The representations will be made to me at the Board of Trade.

Mr. Chorlton: The difficulty is that in America those who represent the manufacturers can speak direct to the Government, but here we have to speak to a Department.

Mr. Stanley: You cannot speak more direct to the Government on a matter of this kind than by speaking to the Board of Trade.

Mr. H. G. Williams: Does anybody know what concessions it is proposed that we should make to the United States, so that we can make representations with respect to specific proposals?

Table showing particulars of horses (including ponies) exported from the United Kingdom and Eire to the Soviet Union during the last three years.


Exports consigned to the Soviet Union.
1935.
1936.
1937.



Number.
Number.
Number.


From the United Kingdom—





Exports (United Kingdom produce)—Total
38
105
3


 of which—





Stallions
38
79
—


Mares
—
26
3


Re-exports—Total
-
-
3


 of which—





Stallions
—
—
1


Geldings
—
—
2


From Eire—





Domestic exports—Total
27
55
(a)


 of which—




Stallions
19
12


Colts
1
28


Mares
—
9


Fillies
6
6


Geldings
1
—


(a) Not yet available from the published trade returns.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

CADETS, WOOLWICH AND SANDHURST.

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for War what was the average age for the last three years as a whole of cadets entering Woolwich and Sandhurst directly from school and from the ranks, respectively; and whether he proposes to give the latter the necessary seniority to place them upon an equality?

Mr. Stanley: As I have said on several occasions, I am satisfied that every single industry which can be covered by these negotiations has already made representations and has given the fullest possible information.

Sir Joseph Lamb: Does that relate to agriculture?

HORSES (EXPORT TO RUSSIA).

Mr. Crawford Greene: asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of horses shipped to Russia in the years 1935, 1936 and 1937 from Great Britain and Ireland?

Mr. Stanley: As the answer involves a number of figures I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Greene: Is the number of stallions exported given in the figures?

Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir.

Following are the statistics:

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Hore-Belisha): Candidates for the Army entrance examination must be between the ages of 18 and 19 years. The average age of the cadets who have entered Woolwich and Sandhurst from the ranks during the last three years was 21 years 10 months. I stated in my speech on the Army Estimates, that I hoped to produce a scheme affecting the promotion and prospects of officers.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT DEPOT, CANTERBURY.

Mr. Anstruther-Gray: asked the Secretary of State for War whether arrangements can be made for a party of Members of Parliament to visit the recruits physical development depot at Canterbury on some convenient date?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, Sir, willingly. May I ask hon. Members who may wish to go to give their names through the usual channels?

MARRIED SOLDIERS.

Mr. Muff (for Mr. G. Griffiths): asked the Secretary of State for War how many soldiers are married and how many are not receiving marriage allowance?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: There are about 22,000 married soldiers over 26 years old on the marriage allowance and married quarters rolls. As soldiers under 26 years of age who marry are not obliged to report the fact, I cannot give their number.

Oral Answers to Questions — TERRITORIAL ARMY.

TRAINING FACILITIES (MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES).

Lieut.-Colonel H. Guest: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the Plymouth City Council have decided to give those employés of the city corporation who are members of the Territorial Army full pay during their annual training in camp, without deduction on account of marriage allowance; and whether he will make representations to other local authorities to do likewise?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, Sir. It was with great pleasure that I learned the decision of the Plymouth City Council. I hope that the example set by them, and by a number of municipal authorities, whose assistance is warmly esteemed, will be followed by others who have not yet decided to give similar facilities.

RECRUITING APPEALS.

Mr. Kimball: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the excellent results of the Home Secretary's recent appeal for air-raid precautions volunteers, he will consider making a similar appeal for recruits for the Territorial Army anti-aircraft batteries and searchlight companies, and give such an

appeal the widest possible publicity by means of the British Broadcasting Corporation?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: This has been done. As an example, the Lord Mayor of London, with public spirit lent premises in the Mansion House to advise would-be recruits to the Territorial Army. The bureau has now been transferred to Drapers' Hall, opposite the Stock Exchange, and recruits have been coming in fast. On Thursday next it moves to 26, Austin Friars. The interest shown is indicated by the number of inquiries received. In the first week there were about 15,000 at the Mansion House. Lord Mayors and Mayors have offered similar facilities in other large centres of population, and I have no doubt that a large proportion of those who are eligible to join the Territorial Army will respond. The British Broadcasting Corporation has also offered to include a Territorial Army item in the afternoon and evening television programmes on Easter Monday, and this is being arranged.

Mr. Thorne: When do you think that these men will be disbanded?

Mr. T. Williams: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of these would-be recruits joined the kite flyers and how many the searchlight brigade?

Major Macnamara: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider organising a national recruiting week during which a special effort by means of meetings, marches, displays, demonstrations, wireless talks, advertisement by posters on hoardings, motor cars, etc., could be made to recruit the Territorial Army up to full strength before the summer camps?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: At a recruiting week held in Aberdeen between 5th and 12th March, where such aids were employed by the Aberdeen City Territorial Army and Air Force Association, the following results accrued: 625 recruits were taken in the week, compared with 259 in the whole of the preceding 11 months; and the strength of the local units not only reached but passed the establishment figure of 1,812 by over 270 men. Other Territorial Army associations have had good results from such weeks, and I hope they will be held elsewhere on dates which suit the varying needs of different localities.

ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCE, SCOTLAND.

Mr. Mathers: asked the Secretary of State for War what arrangements have been made for the establishment of antiaircraft units for the protection of Edinburgh, the Lothians, and the Firth of Forth area?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the names of the existing anti-aircraft units in Scotland. The number of units will be increased during 1938.

Mr. Mathers: Can the right hon. Gentleman give some indication that these areas are being adequately protected? Is he aware of the concern in these areas owing to my lack of success in getting any information at all from other Ministers?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I do not know what is operating in the privacy of the hon. Member's mind, but, as I have said, the number will be increased during 1938.

Following is the statement:

Unit and Territorial Army Association by which administered.

226th A.A. Battery R.A.—Caithness and Orkney.
227th A.A. Battery R.A.—Fife.
228th A.A. Battery R.A.—Edinburgh.
319th A.A. Coy. R.E—Aberdeen.
320th A.A. Coy. R.E.—Dundee.

Mr. Davidson: asked the Secretary of State for War the total number of officers and men attached to the five antiaircraft units in Scotland; and whether such units are equipped with the latest type of anti-aircraft guns?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: As most of the units have only recently been opened for recruitment, and as I understand that figures for March are showing a big increase, I would ask the hon. Gentleman to be good enough to wait until these have been received at the War Office.

Mr. Davidson: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of the question, as to the type of anti-aircraft guns being placed at the disposal of the men?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: These units have full equipment in proportion to the numbers for training.

Mr. Davidson: Are they Territorial units or Regular Force units?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: They are Territorial units.

Mr. Davidson: Is the Minister really satisfied that the five Territorial units which are being built up is adequate protection, and, in view of the call for men, will he at least hasten up the development of anti-aircraft defence?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: As I have said in reply to a previous question, the number of units will be increased in 1938.

Mr. Mathers: Is the Minister proposing to increase the number of units by transferring units at present under other auspices to anti-aircraft units? Does he know that these units do not wish to be transferred in this way, and that the desire is that new anti-aircraft units should be built up?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I was not aware of any reluctance to transfer to other units, but I welcome this enthusiasm of hon. Members, and if they feel that Scotland is not adequately protected, I hope they will do their best to assist to bring recruitment up to standard.

Mr. Mathers: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries as to the feeling about converting present units into antiaircraft units?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, Sir.

REVIEW, HYDE PARK.

Major Macnamara: asked the Secretary of State for War whether there is to be a Territorial review in Hyde Park this summer?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: It has not been found possible to arrange for such a review to be held this year.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

TRADING ESTATES.

Mr. Mathers: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he can now make a statement regarding the establishment of further trading estates in Scotland, indicating when and where developments are to take place?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Elliot): The Commissioner informs me that in the light of the response to the establishment of the industrial estate at North Hillington he is actively considering


the question of subsidiary developments elsewhere in the Special Areas. I am not in a position to make any statement at present.

HOUSING, LANARKSHIRE.

Mr. Anstruther-Gray: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether the plans submitted to the Lanarkshire County Council by the Special Areas Housing Association have yet been passed by the county council or, if not, what specific points are causing delay?

Mr. Elliot: The plans submitted by the association to the county council are being considered by the offiicals of the county council and it is hoped that they will be approved by the appropriate committee at their next meeting on Tuesday, 5th April. No delay has taken place in the consideration of the plans.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

Mr. Day: asked the Minister of Pensions the number of cases which have been reviewed, and an increase of pension awarded, during the three years ended to the last convenient date?

Mr. Munro (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. The number of cases which were reviewed and an increase of pension awarded during the three years ended 31st December last was 8,385.

Mr. Day: Is it not a fact that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction about the way these pensions are awarded?

Mr. Munro: I am not aware of it.

Oral Answers to Questions — FORESTRY COMMISSION PLANTATIONS (FIRES).

Mr. Adamson: asked the right hon. and gallant Member for Rye, as representing the Forestry Commissioners, the total damage done by fire during the week-end on Cannock Chase to trees and land under the control of the Commissioners; and whether he can estimate the approximate period which will elapse before the planting of new trees can be commenced?

Colonel Sir George Courthope (Forestry Commissioner): At Cannock Chase 325 acres of Forestry Commission plantations were destroyed by fire on Sunday, the 20th instant. The land itself has not been damaged from the point of view of timber production. Replanting will be started next season in nine months' time.

Sir J. Lamb: Can the right hon. and gallant Member say what was the cause of the fire?

Sir G. Courthope: Two fires started on adjoining common land and reached substantial proportions before they reached the Commission's land, and our patrol was utterly unable to stop them.

Mr. Mander: What steps are taken to prevent fires arising and spreading through plantations?

Sir G. Courthope: There is a regular technique of fire patrol and fire precautions. We are spending about £40,000 a year on protection, including fire patrol, and our losses would be infinitely greater than they are but for this expenditure.

Mr. Mander: Can the right hon. and gallant Member say how it was that it did not operate on this occasion?

Sir G. Courthope: It failed to operate on this occasion because the precautions taken against fire on the adjoining common land are not so great as those taken by the Forestry Commission.

Sir J. Lamb: What was the origin of the fire on the common land?

Sir G. Courthope: I am informed that crowds of people find their way on to the common land on Sundays, and very likely a single cigarette-end in each case may have been the cause.

Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: asked the right hon. and gallant Member for Rye, as representing the Forestry Commissioners, how many acres of forest plantations have been destroyed by fires during the last six weeks; what has been the cause of these fires; and whether any steps are being taken to protect young plantations from picnickers and other ramblers starting such conflagrations?

Sir G. Courthope: Seven hundred and fifteen acres of Forestry Commission


plantations have been destroyed by fires during the last six weeks. Seventy-nine fires were caused by railway engines, 41 by fires spreading from adjoining land, 46 by members of the public and 80 unknown or miscellaneous. There is a fire protection plan for each forest area, and steps are taken to protect young plantations from fire by general publicity and locally by means of warning notices, organised patrols, look-outs and fire fighters.

Brigadier-General Brown: Do these figures include the losses borne by private owners?

Sir G. Courthope: No, Sir. These losses are on Forestry Commission land.

Brigadier-General Brown: Is the right hon. and gallant Member aware that land owners do not get much encouragement to plant trees when people come and burn down their trees? Cannot he do more by way of administrative order or by publicity through the British Broadcasting Corporation to warn people of the danger of causing fires?

Sir G. Courthope: That is done every week during the danger period.

Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: As these fires are more prevalent at week-ends, should not the fire patrol be busier during the week-end than in the rest of the week?

Sir G. Courthope: That is already the case.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUSTON RAILWAY STATION (DORIC GATEWAY).

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been drawn to the proposal of the London Midland and Scottish Railway to destroy the Doric gateway of Euston in the course of building a new station with money borrowed under Treasury guarantee; whether he is aware of its beauty and historic interest; and whether he will consult the Royal Fine Art Commission as to whether it can and should be moved to another site?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Captain Austin Hudson): I am informed by the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company that, in the preparation of the drawings

for the new building at Euston, very careful consideration has been given by the architects to the possibility of embodying the Hardwick portico in the design, but that it has not been found feasible to do so. The company is willing to consult the Royal Fine Art Commission with regard to the feasibility of the removal of the portico to another site. I am assured that the company fully appreciate the historic interest attaching to this gateway and are entirely sympathetic towards the proposal that steps should be taken to secure its preservation. They will glady give permission for the removal and re-erection of the gateway on another site if those interested in its preservation are willing to bear the expense which would be incurred over and above the ordinary costs of demolition.

Mr. Watkins: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that at the time this gateway was erected Ruskin objected to it as being inappropriate for a railway terminus, and that the community wishes the company well in planning a new station at Euston?

Oral Answers to Questions — GREAT BRITAIN (GERMAN RESIDENTS).

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department particulars of the activities of the German secret police, the Gestapo, in England; and whether he is aware that Germans resident in London are continually watched and reported on to Berlin by this organisation?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Samuel Hoare): It would not be in the public interest to say more on this subject than that foreigners while resident in this country are entitled to the freedom which is enjoyed by all persons who are subject to the protection of our laws and the position is being closely watched by the responsible authorities.

Mr. Mander: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Gestapo put pressure on Germans in this country who desire to obtain naturalisation, and who in other ways do not toe the line, through their families in Germany, and will he take steps to put a stop to that kind of thing?

Sir S. Hoare: If I have any evidence that unlawful acts are being committed, I will certainly take action.

Mr. Mander: Are not the British police perfectly competent to look after all British subjects and foreigners in this country? Do we require any foreign assistance at all?

Sir S. Hoare: I would certainly say that the British police are amply competent to do that.

Sir P. Harris: In any cases where there is any suspicion that Germans coming to this country are doing a piece of work for Germany in this country, will the right hon. Gentleman see that they leave the country at once?

Sir S. Hoare: I am watching the position very closely, and if I have reason to suppose that any unlawful acts are being committed, I will at once take action.

Mr. Bellenger: In order to allay any uneasiness in the public mind, will the right hon. Gentleman give a categorical assurance that no agents of the German secret police are working in this country?

Sir S. Hoare: I have given the House full information in the answer and the supplementary answers which I have just given.

Oral Answers to Questions — WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that the present method of medical referees under the Workmen's Compensation Act does not give satisfaction to the injured workmen, and that a change is suggested in the report of the Departmental Committee set up to inquire into the Workmen's Compensation Act; when he intends to announce the conclusions of the Government on this report; and whether he proposes to consult the House prior to arriving at these conclusions?

Sir S. Hoare: The Committee's recommendations involve important changes in the present system which could not be carried out without legislation, and I cannot foresee sufficient time this Session for legislation of this character. In any case it would, I consider, be an advantage to allow more time, not only for the Government but also for industry and for Members of Parliament, to consider the recommendations of the Committee before legislation is formulated, and I shall be glad to receive and consider any

representations which hon. Members may wish to make on particular points.

Mr. Tinker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is great unrest among working people who want some alteration of the present Workmen's Compensation Act, and will he reconsider his decision not to bring in legislation this Session?

Sir S. Hoare: No, Sir, I am afraid that, as far as I can judge, there will be no time for legislation of this kind during this Session.

Mr. T. Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that this will be dealt with during the lifetime of this Parliament?

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL MILITARY TRAINING (CHANNEL ISLANDS).

Major Macnamara: asked the Home Secretary whether a form of national military training has been reintroduced in the Channel Islands, and whether he can make a statement as to what form it takes?

Sir S. Hoare: The Defence Committee of Jersey has recommended that young men should be liable for enrolment by ballot in the Royal Militia should the numbers presenting themselves voluntarily not be sufficient to complete the establishment. A similar system is in force in Guernsey.

Oral Answers to Questions — JURYMEN (EXPENSES).

Mr. Arthur Henderson: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that a Mr. L. Awbery, a working woodsman of Newbury, was summoned as a juryman to attend the Winchester Assizes on Monday, 21st February; that he duly attended on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of that week, paying his fare of 3s. 6d. return to Winchester daily; that his services as juryman were not required; that his total out-of-pocket expenses for the five days amounted to 22s. 6d., nearly half his week's wages; and whether, having regard to the hardship involved, he will consider taking steps to provide free travelling facilities in such cases?

Sir S. Hoare: My attention had not previously been drawn to this case, but any proposal to provide from public funds for


the travelling and other expenses of persons summoned for jury service would require legislation, and I am not in a position to make any statement as to legislation on this subject.

Mr. Henderson: Will the Home Secretary bear in mind that this case is typical of the financial hardship that is caused to many of those who are called to serve on common juries, and will he not review that position of jurymen generally in relation to out-of-pocket expenses?

Sir S. Hoare: I will keep this case and others of the same kind in mind in the event of possible legislation in future. I would, however, remind the hon. Member that it has always been an established principle in this country that the citizen should give his service gratuitously.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR-RAID PRECAUTIONS.

Mr. Chorlton: asked the Home Secretary what arrangements he is making to see that a proper duplicate pressure water supply is provided for each small town as protection against the effects of incendiary bombs in a hostile air attack?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): The cost of any general scheme of providing alternative water supplies would be so great as to be prohibitive, but the question how best to supplement water supplies for fire-fighting purposes in cases of attack by incendiary bombs is receiving close attention.

Oral Answers to Questions — POULTRY INDUSTRY.

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Agriculture what was the weighted average price of eggs for the last 12 months?

Mr. Munro: I have been asked to reply. The necessary information is not available to enable a weighted average price of eggs in general to be calculated. It is estimated, however, that the weighted average price of English National Mark Standard eggs during 1937 was 1s. 5¾d. per dozen, compared with an unweighted average of 1s. 7d. per dozen.

Mr. Roland Robinson: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the amount received during 1937 as a result

of import duties on the following commodities, respectively: eggs in shell, liquid eggs, other egg products, and table poultry?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lieut.-Colonel Colville): The approximate figures are:—Eggs in shell, £1,655,000; Liquid (or frozen) eggs, £202,000; Other egg products, £33,200; Poultry (alive or dead), £684,000.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPAIN.

Mr. Mander: asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider proposing to the signatories that the operation of the Nyon Agreement should be extended to the protection of Spanish shipping and territorial waters and to the convoying of ships bringing war materials as well as food to the Spanish Government?

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): A proposal of this nature was considered at the Nyon Conference but was not accepted. I do not think it likely that, if raised again, it would meet with general acceptance and His Majesty's Government, for their part, are not prepared to put it forward.

Mr. Mander: Has any suggestion on those lines been put forward recently by any of the signatories?

Mr. Butler: I am not aware of it.

Mr. Noel-Baker: (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether he can make a further statement concerning the aerial bombardment of the civilian population in the towns and villages of Eastern Spain and concerning the reply which His Majesty's Government have received from General Franco on this subject.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): The British Agent at Burgos has received a note from the authorities there repudiating the claim that the civil population have been the object of deliberate attack either in Barcelona or elsewhere, and alleging that Barcelona constitutes a military objective of great importance with 200 factories and industrial undertakings for the production of war material. The authorities, at the same time, express their sorrow at the loss of innocent lives and state that they desire, so far as they can, to minimise the effects of aerial


activity on the populations of towns and to employ only such means when imperative military necessity leaves them no alternative. His Majesty's Government cannot regard this reply as an adequate justification in view of the exceptional loss of life and injury to the civilian population of Barcelona, but they have been glad to note that no further bombardments of Barcelona itself have taken place since their recent communication on this subject was addressed to General Franco's administration.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is it not a fact that instead of bombing Barcelona General Franco's German and Italian aircraft have been bombing smaller towns and villages where there are no foreign journalists to make reports and where there are no military objectives of any kind, and will His Majesty's Government make a further protest against this practice?

Mr. Paling: If the Prime Minister cannot accept the answer as any justification of what General Franco is doing, what does he propose to do about it?

Mr. Cocks: Why does not the Prime Minister protest to his friends at Rome—to Lord Perth and to his sister-in-law?

Oral Answers to Questions — MEXICAN OILFIELDS (BRITISH INTERESTS).

Mr. H. G. Williams: asked the Prime Minister whether he has any statement to make on the recent action of the Mexican Government in confiscating the property of British companies and preventing the employment of British subjects in connection therewith?

Colonel Burton: asked the Prime Minister what representations have been made to the Mexican Government in connection with the expropriation of British property in that country?

Mr. Butler: I would refer my hon. Friends to the replies given to questions on this subject on 23rd and 28th March, to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. Williams: When does my hon. Friend hope to be in a position to give a more definite answer to the question?

Mr. Butler: When the examination of the whole position has been completed.

Oral Answers to Questions — WATER SUPPLY (FARMS).

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Health whether he is now prepared to consider sending notices to various local authorities throughout the country urging them to give every assistance and facility for supplies of water to be laid on to farms, in view of the difficulties experienced by many farmers at the present time?

The Minister of Health (Sir Kingsley Wood): I am not aware that local authorities generally are unwilling to supply farms with water from their mains on reasonable terms. If my hon. Friend has any particular cases in mind, I should be glad to look into them.

Mr. De la Bère: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that I always regarded him as an almost ideal Minister?

Mr. Thorne: May I ask whether the Prime Minister heard what the hon. Member said?

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC ASSISTANCE (CANTERBURY INSTITUTION STAFF).

Mr. Messer: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the widespread dissatisfaction in Canterbury at the action of the Canterbury public assistance committee in demanding the resignation of certain members of the staff of the public assistance institution; whether he has considered a request for an inquiry; and what action he proposes to take?

Sir K. Wood: I have received a communication from an organisation representing certain members of the staff of the institution. My consent is not required to the determination of the appointments of any of the officers in question, but I am asking the town council for a report on the matter and I will communicate with the hon. Member in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions — WHITEHALL GARDENS (HOUSES, DEMOLITION).

Mr. Mander: asked the First Commissioner of Works what is the position with regard to the proposed destruction of Whitehall Gardens; what steps are being taken to preserve these historical period houses; and whether the advice of the Royal Fine Art Commission has been sought and taken?

The First Commissioner of Works (Sir Philip Sassoon): It is anticipated that the demolition of the houses in Whitehall Gardens will be commenced in the latter part of June, in order to clear the site of the first portion of the new Whitehall building: six of the most important panelled rooms in these houses have been selected for incorporation in the new building and are being carefully preserved for this purpose, certain specimens of metalwork and furniture are being reserved for the Victoria and Albert Museum, and various other items, mainly mantelpieces and a staircase, have either already been utilised in other suitable buildings or will be taken into store for future use. The advice of the Royal Fine Art Commission has been sought in regard to both the details of the development of the site and the elevational treatment of the new building.

Mr. Mander: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very strong objections in artistic circles to the pulling down of these buildings, and in view of the fact that in the interests of National Defence it may be desirable not to house great numbers of civil servants in one spot, will he reconsider the matter?

Sir P. Sassoon: It is essential to find more accommodation in that area.

Oral Answers to Questions — CINEMATOGRAPH FILM POSTERS.

Mr. Muff (for Mr. G. Griffiths): asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the recent conviction of a British picture corporation for having displayed posters outside a cinema advertising a certain film; and whether any steps have been taken, or are contemplated, to prevent the exhibition at special cinemas of indecent films which have been banned by the censor?

Sir S. Hoare: I have made inquiry and I find that the proceedings to which the hon. Member apparently refers were taken in respect of a poster not because it was indecent or because any part of the film advertised was indecent, but because

it contravened the conditions prescribed by the licensing authority. The latter part, therefore, of the question does not arise.

Mr. T. Williams: Are there special cinemas in any part of this city for the exhibition of films which have been banned by the censor and passed by the local authorities?

Sir S. Hoare: I should say certainly not, but I should like to have notice of the question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BILL PRESENTED.

HOUSING (RURAL WORKERS) AMENDMENT BILL.

"to amend the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts, 1926 and 1931," presented by Sir Kingsley Wood; supported by Mr. Elliot, Mr. W. S. Morrison, Mr. Bernays, and Mr. Wedderburn; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 113.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. T. Johnston: May I ask the Patronage Secretary whether we can have a statement on the business which the Government propose to take to-night?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Margesson): We hope to take the Orders down to the Money Resolution relating to Scottish land courts.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

Mr. Tinker: May I say a few words to the Prime Minister on this Motion?

Mr. Speaker: No, it is a Motion of which the Prime Minister has given notice, and cannot be debated.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 230; Noes, 104.

Division No. 150.]
AYES.
[3.35 p.m.


Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)
Assheton, R.
Beauchamp, Sir B. C.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Baillie, Sir A. W. M.
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)


Albery, Sir Irving
Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.
Bennett, Sir E. N.


Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)
Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)
Bernays, R. H.


Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Sc'h Univ's)
Barrie, Sir C. C.
Birchall, Sir J. D.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Brass, Sir W.




Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)
Pownall, Lt.-Col. Sir Assheton


Brocklebank, Sir Edmund
Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.
Procter, Major H. A.


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.
Radford. E. A.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan.
Rankin, Sir R.


Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)


Bull, B. B.
Higgs, W. F.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)


Burgin, Rt. Hon. E. L.
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)
Rayner, Major R. H.


Burton, Col. H. W.
Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.
Reid, J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Butler, R. A.
Holdsworth, H.
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.
Ropner, Colonel L.


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)
Horsbrugh, Florence
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)
Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.


Channon, H.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)
Hulbert, N. J.
Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)


Chorlton, A. E. L.
Hunter, T.
Salmon, Sir I.


Christie, J. A.
Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Samuel, M. R. A.


Clarke, Colonel R. S. (E. Grinstead)
Jones, L. (Swansea W.)
Sandeman, Sir N. S.


Clarry, Sir Reginald
Keeling, E. H.
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Colman, N. C. D.
Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)
Sandys, E. D.


Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.


Conant, Captain R. J. E.
Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)
Savery, Sir Servington


Cook, Sir T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)
Knox, Major-General Sir A. W. F.
Scott, Lord William


Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Seely, Sir H. M.


Cox, H. B. Trevor
Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)


Crooke, Sir J. S.
Latham, Sir P.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.
Leech, Sir J. W.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Cross, R. H
Lees-Jones, J.
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)


Crowder, J. F. E.
Leigh, Sir J.
Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.


Culverwell, C. T.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)
Lewis, O.
Smith, L. W. (Hallam)


De la Bère, R.
Lindsay, K. M.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Lipson, D. L.
Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)


Denville, Alfred
Llewellin, Colonel J. J.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Doland. G. F.
Lloyd, G. W.
Southby, Commander Sir A. R. J.


Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)
Lyons, A. M.
Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Mabane, W. (Huddenfield)
Spens, W. P.


Duggan, H. J.
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)


Eckersley, P. T.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)
Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
McKie, J. H.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.


Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Macnamara, Major J. R. J.
Tasker, Sir R. I.


Ellis, Sir G.
Magnay, T.
Tate, Mavis C.


Elliston, Capt. G. S.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.
Touche, G. C.


Elmley, Viscount
Mander, G. le M.
Train, Sir J.


Emery, J. F.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Tree, A. R. L. F.


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Marsden, Commander A.
Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.


Entwistle, Sir C. F.
Maxwell, Hon. S. A.
Turton, R. H.


Errington, E.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Walker-Smith, Sir J.


Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan


Everard, W. L.
Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Findlay, Sir E.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)


Foot, D. M.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Warrender, Sir V.


Fox, Sir G. W. G.
Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R.
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Furness, S. N.
Morris-Jones, Sir Henry
Watt, Major G. S. Harvie


Fyfe, D. P. M.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Wells, S. R.


Gluckstein, L. H.
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Grant-Ferris, R.
Nicolson, Hon. H. G.
Willoughby de Eresby Lord


Granville, E. L.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. G. A.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Wise, A. R.


Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.
Owen, Major G.
Withers, Sir J. J.


Gridley, Sir A. B.
Palmer, G. E. H.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Grimston, R. V.
Peake, O.
Wood, Hon. C. I. C.


Guest, Lieut.-Colonel H. (Drake)
Perkins, W. R. D.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.
Peters, Dr. S. J.
Wragg, H.


Hambro, A. V.
Petherick, M.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Hannah, I. C.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.



Harbord, A.
Pilkington, R.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Harris, Sir P. A.
Plugge, Capt. L. F.
Captain Dugdale and Mr. Munro.


Hartington, Marquess of
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.





NOES.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Benson, G.
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Bevan, A.
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)


Ammon, C. G.
Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Burke, W. A.
Day, H.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Charleton, H. C.
Dobbie, W.


Banfield, J. W.
Cluse, W. S.
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)


Batey, J.
Cooks, F. S.
Ede, J. C.


Bellenger F. J.
Cove, W. G.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)


Bonn, Rt. Hon. W. W.
Daggar, G.
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.







Frankel, D.
Lunn, W.
Simpson, F. B.


Gallacher, W.
Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Gardner, B. W.
McEntee, V. La T.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Gram, W. H. (Deptford)
McGhee, H. G.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
MacLaren, A.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Grenfell, D. R.
Maclean, N.
Stephen, C.


Groves, T. E.
Mainwaring, W. H.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)
Mathers, G.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Hardie, Agnes
Maxton, J.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Messer, F.
Thorne, W.


Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Milner, Major J.
Thurtle, E.


Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Tinker, J. J.


Hills, A. (Pontefract)
Muff, G.
Tomlinson, G.


Hopkin, D.
Noel-Baker, P. J.
Viant, S. P.


Jagger, J.
Oliver, G. H.
Walkden, A. G.


Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)
Paling, W.
Walker, J.


Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.
Parker, J.
Watkins, F. C.


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Parkinson, J. A.
Watson, W. McL.


Kelly, W. T.
Pearson, A.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.


Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.
Westwood, J.


Kirby, B. V.
Quibell, D. J. K.
Williams, T. (Don Valley)


Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.
Richards, R. (Wrexham)
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Lawson, J. J.
Ridley, G.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Leach, W.
Riley, B.



Lee, F.
Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Leonard, W.
Sexton. T. M.
Mr. Adamson and Mr. Whiteley.


Logan, D. G.
Shinwell, E.



Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to,

Cotton Industry Bill,

Housing (Financial Provisions) Bill, without Amendment.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to unite the Royal Infirmary Sheffield and the Sheffield Royal Hospital in one corporation to be called the Royal Sheffield Infirmary and Hospital; and for other purposes." [Royal Sheffield Infirmary and Hospital Bill [Lords.]

PREVENTION OF ROAD ACCIDENTS.

That they request that the Commons will be pleased to give leave to Sydney Frank Markham, esquire, and Arthur Creech Jones, esquire, Members of their House, to attend, in order to their being examined at Witnesses before the Select Committee appointed by their Lordships on the Prevention of Road Accidents.

ROYAL SHEFFIELD INFIRMARY AND HOSPITAL BILL [Lords.]

Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

HOUSING (SCOTLAND) ACTS.

3.45 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Wedderburn): I beg to move,
That the draft of the Housing (Scotland) Acts (Continuation of Contributions) Order, 1938, proposed to be made by the Department of Health for Scotland, with the approval of the Treasury, under Section 33 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1935, which was presented on the 3rd day of March, 1938, be approved.
This Order is presented in accordance with the provisions of Section 33 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1935, which authorises the present subsidies in respect of slum clearance and decrowding, to be paid on houses which are completed by 31st March, 1938, that is, by the day after to-morrow. An Order approved by this House is, however, necessary to provide statutory authority for the payment of the subsidies in respect of houses completed after that date. An Order made under that Section can continue subsidies at the existing rate, or it can reduce them, but no increase in the subsidies is possible without legislation. What this Order proposes to do is to continue the subsidy at the existing rate.
The House will, no doubt, be aware that the present rate for slum clearance subsidy in Scotland is, on a per capita basis, £2 10s., and £2 15s. in the case of rural areas. The subsidy, therefore, varies very much in accordance with the size of the family, that for a family of two persons being £5 and for a family of six persons, £15. The subsidy under the 1935 Act, however, is paid, not in respect of the number of persons concerned, but as a flat-rate subsidy for each house built, and amounts to £6 15s. per house. The House may ask what is the average in money under those two powers combined. I can give hon. Members information relating to the houses built last year. The average amount of subsidy for both decrowding and slum clearance amounted to slightly under £11 per house.
The Act of 1935 requires that, before a draft Order of this kind can be made, the Department of Health must consult with recognised associations representative of local authorities in Scotland. Those consultations began on 1st November last year, and a special sub-

committee was appointed for that purpose by the associations representing local authorities in Scotland. During the discussions which took place it was generally recognised that an important consideration in any review of the subsidy was the level of building costs. My right hon. Friend and I have often explained to the House that in our view one of the main reasons for the high cost of building in Scotland, during the last 12 months or so, has been the overloading of the building industry in Scotland with more work than it is capable of performing. In England, where the building industry has not been subjected to the same strain, increases in building costs have been comparatively moderate. In Scotland, the increases in building costs have varied as between one district and another, and in some districts the increase has been very high indeed. It appears probable that the peak was reached at about the end of last year, and there are signs at the moment of a downward tendency, but the future of building costs in Scotland is very uncertain, and it was generally agreed with a sub-committee representative of the local authorities of Scotland that the best course would be to continue the existing subsidies without any modification for a temporary period, in order to enable the position to be generally reviewed during the next few months. Our intention is that the existing subsidies shall be prolonged until 31st December of this year. Between now and that date discussions with the sub-committee to which I have referred will continue, and the position will be examined with a view to seeing whether any adjustments are necessary. Those discussions will, of course, proceed on the assumption that any adjustment which may be found desirable must represent a fair distribution of the burden between the local authorities and the Exchequer.

Mr. Mathers: Are we to understand that, when the time arrives, the adjustment will only be in a downward direction?

Mr. Wedderburn: No, Sir; the adjustment can only be in a downward direction if it is made on an Order of the kind that we are now discussing. The House will have seen that this draft Order is for a period, not of one year, but of three years. The reason for that is that


we are advised that any Order made under Section 33 of the Act of 1935 must relate to the whole triennial period be fore the next review due to take place in 1941. But that will not in any way prejudice the examination of the position which will take place in the next few months. In the meantime the Order is necessary so that the subsidy may continue to be paid after the end of the present month.

3.54 p.m.

Mr. T. Johnston: The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has informed the House that the proposal he has just made is for a continuation of the existing rate of subsidy in Scotland for a period of three years. While that is technically so, in point of fact, as I hope to show in a moment, there has been happening in Scotland a progressive deterioration in the amount of subsidy given to the local authorities during the past two or three years, and what the Government are doing now is to perpetuate a position in Scotland which the local authorities almost unanimously declare to be an impossible one, and one in which they do not feel that they can develop a large-scale building programme. I want to direct the attention of the Government and the House to one or two facts, and to ask the Government one or two questions.
In the first place, am I right in saying that in Scotland during the last three years, 1935, 1936 and 1937, there has been a progressive diminution in the number of houses completed? In 1935, that number was over 18,000; in 1936 it was just over 16,000, and in 1937 just over 13,000. Side by side with that, we have an increase in the number alleged to be under construction. The numbers completed are falling, while the numbers on hand tend to rise. That is the first fact to which I would direct the attention of the House. The second is with regard to the question of costs. In 1935, the average cost of a three-apartment dwelling in Scotland was £284; in 1936 it was £331, and in 1937, £416. In the same three years respectively, the cost of a four-apartment house was £325, £377 and £460. The increase on a four-apartment dwelling is £135, and on a three-apartment dwelling £132. Thus, while the subsidy is stabilised, the costs are rising. The costs have risen by over 25 per cent. while the subsidy has re-

mained static. The Government come forward to-day and propose that the subsidy shall continue as it is.
The Under-Secretary has ascribed this extraordinary rise in house-building costs to what he called overloading the industry—giving it too much work. What does this overloading mean? It means that the building employers and the suppliers of materials in Scotland have taken advantage of a shortage to raise prices against the Government. That is what this polite word "overloading" means. If you overload the industry, you give it more orders than it can execute or can find materials for, and, by reason of this impact of increasing demand upon the shortage of supply, those who are in control either of the organisation or of the materials have been able to hold up His Majesty's Government to ransom to the extent of an increase of over 25 per cent. in the cost of housing. The hon. Gentleman gave another figure. He said that the average subsidy per house received by local authorities in Scotland last year, taking the subsidy under the Act of 1930 plus the subsidy under the Act of 1935, was something under £11. Is that right?

Mr. Wedderburn: It is £10 15s.

Mr. Johnston: Then, £10 15s. The hon. Gentleman might have informed the House that in 1936 it was £12 6s. There has been a definite progressive deterioration in the subsidy for houses received by the local authorities. These are facts about which the Government should give an explanation before they get away with this Order. The figures that I have given do not apply to England. From 1935 until now the increased cost of the wholesale prices of building materials in England, as given by the Board of Trade index number, has been seven points, roughly 7 per cent. That is 7 per cent. increase in England and over 25 per cent. increase in Scotland. What does this mean to us? In Scotland we have a 50 per cent. higher maternal mortality than England; overcrowding is six times worse in Scotland than in England. The average of overcrowding in England is about 3.8 per cent., but in Scotland we have a total that is six times as great. We have one town, Coatbridge, with overcrowding which shows that 44 per cent. of the inhabitants are living in overcrowded conditions. There are four towns in Scot-


land with over 40 per cent. of overcrowding; there are eight towns in Scotland with an overcrowding figure of between 30 and 40 per cent.; there are 21 towns with an overcrowding figure of between 25 and 30 per cent.; and 33 towns with an overcrowding figure of 25 per cent. Yet the average for England is only 3.8.
There are other factors to be considered. I shall say nothing about an unemployment figure which is 68 per cent. worse in Scotland than in England; I shall say nothing about our Poor Law relief figure, which is two and a-half times worse than that in England. But I am going to make a comment on the fact that, almost one-third of the people in Scotland are living more than two to a room, and that in our burghs we have 300,000 houses in which there is no separate water closet. In view of these facts, rising prices which are rising higher than in England, the value of the subsidy therefore deteriorating so far as the local authorities are concerned, the manifest inability of the local authorities to meet the position due to the extraordinary-overcrowding and other difficulties, while I do not blame the Secretary of State for this position at all—I am not foolish enough to do so—I do suggest that the right hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Maxton: Who is to blame?

Mr. Johnston: I shall make my explanation as best I can. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State ought to go to His Majesty's Cabinet and lay down terms and conditions for the future government of Scotland, and if they are not accepted he and his friends ought to walk from the Front Bench. We have all been in this business; we have all had a share of responsibility. But the fact of the matter is that profiteering is being permitted in the building industry. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Someone says, "No." Let us take cement. Is it the case that the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers, Limited, who paid only 8 per cent. dividend down to 1931, are now regularly paying 22½ per cent.? Is that true? Is it true that another Portland Cement Company is paying 25 per cent. dividend, and that ironfounders prices are up by 25 per cent.? Is it the case that the cement combine, on top of these profits, have intimated another 3s. increase in the price of cement? Is it the case that there is

profiteering in earthenware pipes, that the price per yard for some qualities and lengths has gone up 50 per cent.? Is it the case that there is a differentiation between brick prices in Glasgow and in Edinburgh, that whereas facing bricks in Edinburgh cost 59s., Glasgow has to pay 101s.? I want an explanation of all these points.
I suggest that while we are not in a position on this side to vote against this Order, on the ground that we cannot take the responsibility for discontinuing the subsidy, we must make the most emphatic protest against the Government for permitting the continuance of profiteering in housebuilding materials in Scotland, permiting a continued and unexplained rise in such materials, permitting a depreciation in the value of the subsidy, and coming forward at the last moment of the last hour and saying, "Take it or leave it, we can do no more." On behalf of many of my hon. Friends I beg to express the greatest regret at the most alarming social difficulties that we have in Scotland. The position is getting worse rather than better, and while in England building is proceeding, in Scotland it is not. We have tried in every way, in Committee on the Rent Restrictions Bill and otherwise, to induce the Government to give an explanation of the differentiation in the position of the two countries. I hope that all parties to-day will unite to impress on the Government their discontent, their indignation at the position in which housing affairs in Scotland are still left.

4.10 p.m.

Sir Archibald Sinclair: The rules of debate on this Order are very strict. I do not wish to detain the House very long, and indeed, within the limits of order the right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) has admirably covered the ground of criticism which I would wish to follow. We are faced in Scotland with an appalling need of new houses. Just under one-quarter of the working-class houses in Scotland are overcrowded. Yet, taking the last few years, as the right hon. Gentleman has just pointed out, the number of houses built is actually diminishing year by year. Slum clearance is held up, and so is the rehousing of the people who are now overcrowded. This is at a time when overcrowding is six times worse in Scotland than in England. Of course this is due very largely to the rise in housing costs.


I must say that I do not think the Government have shown in the past sufficient appreciation of the importance of this factor in their housing policy, and of the causes which have given rise to it.
The Under-Secretary in his speech referred to the consultations which had been taking place between the Government and the local authorities, and I gathered that this question of the rising cost of houses was one of the principal questions discussed, and that the alarm which the local authorities have been expressing on that subject, both in public meetings of the Convention of Royal Burghs, the County Councils Association and so forth, was fully expressed in the conversations which they had with the Government. The Under-Secretary of State said that the principal cause of these rising housing costs was what he described as overloading, but I do not see how that can be a cause of the discrepancy between the rate at which the cost of house building is rising in Scotland compared with the rate at which it is rising in England. On the one hand, in Scotland we have fewer houses being built, but on the other hand we have the Hilling-ton Estate scheme, armament factories being constructed and various enterprises being carried out apart from housing, which are all calling for labour and supplies of building materials. But it is equally true that in England there are exactly similar enterprises going on. I do not see in that statement sufficient to account for the sharp rise that is going on in Scotland.
I remember that when the Rural Housing Bill was being discussed in this House in November the Under-Secretary of State gave us some very comforting assurances about the future cost of house building in Scotland. He said in November that the costs were unjustifiably high and that they were not justified by economic facts. He said further that there was then every reason to believe that the costs would not be maintained at their then height. But to-day he speaks in much more cautious language. To-day, far from the fall in prices to which he looked forward in November having happened, he speaks far more cautiously about the prospects. He tells us only that he sees some indication that prices may fall in future, and he says that there will have to be further consultations with the local authorities in

a few months' time in the light of the price level as it then exists. November last was not the first time that we heard from the Government comforting assurances about the probable future course of prices for house building in Scotland. Yet these costs still continue to mount. I, therefore, join with the right hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk in pressing the Government to tell us what they are going to do to stop the steadily increasing costs.
Hon. Members will remember that housing conference held last December—there is another, I believe, to be held quite soon under the auspices of some of the local authorities in Scotland—at which the importance of this issue was so strongly pressed. They will have read the debates in the Convention of Royal Burghs. There is the strongest feeling on this subject, and I hope the Government will be able to give us some assurances on it before they ask us to pass this Order. I feel that a policy of merely continuing the subsidies at the present level is inadequate to deal with the housing needs of Scotland to-day. The Government ought to take steps to increase supplies of building material by taking off the tariffs, which not only force up the costs of these materials, but also give the manufacturers an opportunity of forming rings and driving up prices artificially. I would urge that their policy should include not only consideration for overcrowding, but also for building other kinds of houses: for instance, houses for young married couples.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman is asking the Government to bring in all kinds of legislation to deal with the housing question. He must remember that this Order is merely to continue the provisions of the present subsidy.

Sir A. Sinclair: I am very sorry that I overstepped the mark in discussing this Order. I know the limits are very narrow. We realise that in this Debate the limits within which we can suggest an alternative policy are very narrow—we cannot, indeed, suggest one at all. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling that we cannot vote against this proposal, for what it is worth; but we must at least register our grave uneasiness at the failure of the Government to grapple with the housing problem.

4.19 p.m.

Mr. Stephen: I wish to join with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) and the Leader of the Liberal party in protesting against the inaction of the Government in connection with housing in Scotland. The limits of this Debate are very narrow indeed; but certainly the figures that were given by the right hon. Member for West Stirling are somewhat suggestive. He pointed to the fact that there had been this diminution in the number of houses completed in the last three years, and that there was a corresponding diminution in the average amount of subsidy paid. I wonder whether there is a certain amount of cause and effect in that connection. I would also draw attention to the statement of the Under-Secretary with regard to the difficulty experienced in getting building material and the rise in the cost of houses, and the explanation that it was due to overloading. It seems to me to be one of the reasons why the position in Scotland is so bad that we are so often ready to ride off on an insufficient explanation.
The difference between England and Scotland in regard to housing conditions is so great, and the difference in the steps that have been taken in those two countries to deal with housing conditions in recent years is such, as to necessitate action by the Government. They ought to get down to the question of finding a suitable remedy. It is no good simply talking about this overloading. I wonder if there is a greater percentage of increase in building in Scotland than in England in other matters than housing, and whether there is a greater proportion of the building labour in Scotland being applied to other things than housing than is the case in England. I question very much whether that is so. We have to take responsibility for housing conditions in Scotland. It has been due to failure on the part of the Government, and also on the part of Scottish representatives to see that the Government take the necessary steps. I feel that the Government do not realise the position. We are simply being left with the prospect of something happening by December. Surely this is a question which involves so much suffering by our people in Scotland that, in dealing with it, we should not be content simply to continue the subsidy for the time being and hope that something will

happen in the future. The Government should give us a promise that they will do something a long time before December. The Under-Secretary was so limited in his statement that I wonder whether there is a real appreciation of the problem on the part of the Government.
In Glasgow we are to have a great Empire Exhibition; and if there has been overloading, I wonder how much of it is due to that exhibition. I see that £10,000,000 is being spent in connection with the exhibition. It is a very striking fact that all this money can be found for the provision of an exhibition, and that yet there can be no real forward policy in connection with housing in Scotland. In speaking with members of local authorities in Scotland I have found that they all take the view that the subsidies are inadequate. I wonder whether the Government are in agreement with the local authorities, and whether they realise that, until you have much greater subsidies, the housing position in Scotland will continue to be the despair of successive Governments.
I remember it being said that unemployment would break Government after Government until a solution was found. I wonder whether the housing position in Scotland is not such that the present Secretary of State for Scotland and his colleagues, unless they can bring forward better plans for dealing with this problem, will suffer greatly in their reputations. When I say that, I have an uneasy feeling, because I recognise that on various occasions both of them have spoken with great enthusiasm and with an apparent desire to see something material done to improve the position in Scotland. But there is the position in which we find ourselves, and all that is being offered is this Order to continue the present arrangements until the end of this year, when there will possibly be something more.

Mr. Maxton: It might something worse.

Mr. Stephen: It appears scarcely credible that it could be anything worse than we have at present. In the past, with the subsidies that have been given, the local authorities and the Government have gone into a position of haggling: the local authorities doing nothing in the hope of a bigger subsidy, and the Government then coming along and saying, "We will extend the subsidy for another period, but


this is the last time, and you will have to get on with it." Because of the way that the local authorities and the Government have haggled, all those hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland have had to endure most terrible housing conditions. I hope that that is not to be allowed to continue. I see in this Order simply a repetition of this old system, of the two authorities trying to get off as cheaply as possible at the expense of one another.
I would like to see the Government produce a real plan to deal with the housing problem. I would recall to the House that the worst district in England is scarcely any worse than the best district in Scotland. Why we cannot get something done really passes comprehension. I hope that we shall get from the Minister, in reply to the discussion, some indication that the Government are really seized with the terrible situation, and that something drastic will be done. The statement which was made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling that the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary should draw up a great plan and insist upon getting Cabinet sanction for it ought to meet with a response from all Scottish Members. If not, the Scottish Members should, irrespective of party, decide upon the necessary steps to see that the question is dealt with adequately. It has gone on for so long that I hope we shall get some indication from the Government Bench to-day that the people in Scotland are to have some real hope in the immediate future of a great programme to provide them with the houses with which they ought to be provided.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: I want to put a definite and direct question to the Minister, and I should like, if possible, to receive a quite definite and direct answer in reply. In a previous discussion upon the question, the Minister himself said that housing in Scotland was shocking and a scandal to civilisation, and outside, in the Lobby, he used much stronger language, and if there had been a policeman near by, he would probably have found himself in gaol. If he is quite convinced that housing in Scotland is a disgrace to civilisation, I would ask him whether this Order is adequate to deal in any way with this disgrace to civilisation. At the

Housing Conference on Friday representatives of most of the local authorities in Scotland were in attendance. A large number of the Opposition Members of Parliament were present, but no Members from the Government side of the House thought it necessary to attend such an important conference.
It was the unanimous opinion at that conference that the present housing subsidy is quite inadequate, and that it makes the situation such that it is impossible for local authorities in Scotland to deal with the problems which confront them. The present subsidy makes it impossible for the local authorities to deal with overcrowding and slum clearance. I ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he agrees with the unanimous decision of the local authorities that this Order is inadequate, or whether he is prepared to represent here, as against all the local authorities and the sound judgment of Scottish Members on this side of the House, that the Order is adequate. I challenge any Scottish Member opposite to get up and say that the Order is adequate, or to go to the local authorities and say that it is adequate. There is a chance for hon. Members opposite to gain fame, of a kind, if they will only get up and support this Order.
I am not well versed in the Procedure of this House, but it seems to me that it would not be a bad thing if we voted against this Order and defeated it. I realise the position in which it would leave local authorities, but I know also, that it would leave the Government in a very much worse position than the local authorities. It would bring about a situation where something really effective would have to be put into operation in order to meet the terrible situation. As the hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) has said, there is tragedy associated with it. If you go into the constituency of the Secretary of State, and into any of the constituencies in Scotland, you will see tragedy in street after street. You will see children being done to death because of the inadequacy of this Order, or of the subsidy which this Order represents. You can see children being done to death there day after day, and no hon. Member can deny that fact. What is the Secretary of State for Scotland going to do about it? Is he going to his own constituency and tell these people that this Order is adequate,


or that they have to stay there because the Government are not prepared to put forward the natural and proper method of dealing with the terrible housing problem in Scotland?
Why should the Under-Secretary of State talk about overloading? Why have they not done something about it? We have been drawing attention all the time to the fact that there would be overloading in connection with armaments, but, according to the story we are told, the Government are doing something about it, checking prices and the rest of it. We beard from the Prime Minister, when he was talking about the meeting with the General Council, that armaments were so important that the Government were prepared to take over the control of the whole of industry from the point of view of ensuring that armaments would receive priority. Why is not house-building getting priority? Are not human beings who are living in overcrowded conditions and in slums of much greater importance than any armaments or anything else?
I ask the Secretary of State to face up to this problem. This Order will not solve any of the problems that concern the local authorities in Scotland. It is not going to stop the diminution of house building in Scotland or to assist in remedying overcrowding and in eliminating slums. It is necessary, if that task is to be undertaken, that a different kind of Order and a different method should be employed. I ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is prepared to recommend this as an adequate means for dealing with the housing problem as it exists in Scotland at the present time? If he cannot straightforwardly and genuinely assert to local authorities that it is adequate, then he has no right to put such an Order into force. He ought to have come prepared with something much better and much more effective.

4.39 p.m.

Mr. Dingle Foot: When I first read this Order I was rather depressed because, on reading the terms of it and comparing it with the terms of Section 33 of the 1935 Act, it looked as though this was to be the policy of the Government for some years to come. For that reason, I was very glad to hear the announcement made by the Under-Secretary of State to-day that the Order does not represent by any

means the last word of the Government for a long time to come. He told us that the present subsidies are to be examined before 31st December of this year in consultation with the local authorities. He might, perhaps, have given us a little more information about the scope of these consultations. How wide is to be the consideration which the Government are going to give to this matter? Is it merely to be a question between the continuance of the present subsidies at the present rate and the possible reduction of those subsidies, or are the Government also going to consider, in consultation with the local authorities, the advisability of increasing and extending the subsidies, if they find that such a course is necessary? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State can give us a little more information upon that point? In proceeding by means of this Order, the Government are under two limitations: First, under the terms of the 1935 Act the Order would be the subsidy specified in that year, and, secondly, the Government are powerless, by Order, to extend in any way the range of the subsidies.
As to the adequacy of the subsidies, a great deal has been said by previous speakers, and it seems to be the unanimous opinion in the House, and among the local authorities in Scotland, that the overcrowding subsidy, which was fixed in 1935, when building prices were very much lower than they are at the present time, is by no means adequate in 1938. Also we have to be concerned with the question of the range of the subsidy. The present position is that we have a per capita subsidy under the Slum Clearance Act, and a subsidy per house for the relief of overcrowding. As the result of the recent legislation in Scotland, and particularly as the result of the 1933 Act, there is no subsidy payable for houses erected to meet the normal requirements of increasing populations.
It has been the experience of all of us who sit for industrial constituencies in Scotland that there is now a most acute shortage of houses for young married couples. Every hon. Member who represents the sort of constituency which I represent will bear me out in saying that. I will give two recent examples of people who came to see me on this subject. Only a short time ago a young man told me


that he had been married for nearly four years. During the whole of that time he had only had one day's unemployment. He had been earning a good wage of over £3 a week, except for that one day, and during the whole of the four years he and his wife had either to live in lodgings or with his wife's parents. He told me that in his opinion his married life was in danger of being completely wrecked through the inability of his wife and himself to find a home of their own. Last week-end I had even a worse case than that brought to my notice by a young man who came to see me. He told me that for the last six years in the city of Dundee he had been endeavouring to obtain a house in which he could live with his wife and three young children, and he had been unsuccessful. At present he and his wife were living in lodgings, and the three children had to be boarded out.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is going a considerable way beyond this Order.

Mr. Foot: I was only trying to point out the limitations of the Order, and, of course, I will not pursue the subject. I want to make the point that the situation is that we are dealing here only with two particular forms of subsidy—the slum clearance subsidy and the overcrowding subsidy. That is all that is done under our present legislation. It is perfectly clear that those two forms of subsidy by no means meet all the needs of the housing situation in Scotland, and I hope that these other needs, and particularly those which I have mentioned, will be borne in mind by the Secretary of State and by the Under-Secretary in the negotiations which they are to have with the local authorities before the end of this year.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Mathers: What is required from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland to-day is that he should show more courage and more strength in facing up to those who provide the money that is required to give a subsidy of this kind. The right hon. Gentleman bears an honoured Scottish name, a name that has been famed for valour. We remember Sir Walter Scott telling us about an occasion
When gallant Cessford's life-blood dear,
Reeked on dark Elliot's Border spear.

There is not very much indication of that sort of bloodthirsty valour about the right hon. Gentleman to-day, as he sits so calmly in this very quiet House, but it is a predominantly English Cabinet that he has to face up to in trying to improve things so far as these subsidies are concerned; and I would remind him of another notable ancestor of his, who, thinking of the English, said of himself:
My name is little Jock Elliot, and wha daur meddle wi' me?
What we want the right hon. Gentleman to do is to take a stand for Scotland in respect of these subsidies in order that they may be made more adequate than they are to meet the position, and to stand up to his colleagues in the way that "little Jock Elliot" did many years ago.
I represent the constituency which has shown the highest increase in house-building costs in Scotland, and I want to give an indication of how the subsidy is really inadequate to prevent very heavy rents being charged to the people who get houses built under these subsidy provisions. Many of those people have come from houses with very low rents, and it is a very acute hardship on them to have to stand up to the higher rents, even in the case of houses where the subsidy might be considered to be more adequate than we can consider the subsidy to be at present. I take the town of Bathgate as an example of how those costs have risen. Bathgate is a town which has built well over 600 houses under various Acts, and indeed there are 600 new houses now in occupation, but at the time of the Census, in spite of that big number of houses being built, Bathgate showed an overcrowded percentage of 28.19. The average cost per house in February, 1936, was £334. When it came to December of last year, the town council, having asked for tenders for 60 houses, were faced with tenders which brought the average price up from £334 to £546 per house, an increase of £212 in less than two years. In view of the very great increase in cost, the town council decided that they would not proceed with those 60 houses. At the same time they again invited tenders for houses, needing them as they did—on another site, it is true—and in February of this year they accepted tenders for those houses at an average cost of £491 per house.
I want to claim that that fall between December and February did not represent


a fall in actual costs, and it certainly did not represent any cutting down of the quality of the houses or of the material that was to be put into them. It represented, in my judgment, what might be done by the right hon. Gentleman if he took the power to do it. I do not know that he has power administratively, and I must be careful not to get out of order by suggesting that he should take legislative powers to carry through what I am putting before him. The mere fact that the Bathgate Town Council showed themselves unwilling to proceed at a cost that they considered excessive was, in my judgment, the cause of the bringing down of those prices. The contractors, I claim, realised that they were not going to get the higher prices, and the next tenders that they made were £55 per house lower than they had been previously. Even that lower price will impose a very serious burden upon the housing pool, and it is almost certain to raise the rents of the houses to a considerable extent. In view of the equalisation of rents, it is not merely the people going into the newest of the houses, but all those with subsidised houses, who will subsequently suffer from the increase in costs.
The town council took the matter up at the time with the right hon. Gentleman, and his attitude towards the problem was that, instead of instituting a system of detailed Government control, he considered that increased production of materials was much more likely to afford a solution of the difficulty. I hope the right hon. Gentleman realises that, in respect of these costs, controlling as they do the prices that prevail, those people who carry through the production are not likely, if they can help it, to reduce prices, even when they have the increased quantities of material available. There is certainly plenty of demand, and we have had an indication from the right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) of how the prices have gone up, and it is obvious that very great profits are being made. I am hoping that we may look upon the continuance of this subsidy as a mere interlude while the right hon. Gentleman gets down to the matter more definitely, tackles it with more determination than he has shown up to the present, and brings forward a scheme that will enable us to get the houses in Scotland available to let at rents which the people who are anxiously

waiting to occupy them may be able to pay.

4.54 p.m.

Sir John Train: I wish to say a few words in regard to the subsidy, though I know it is very difficult to make a speech within the narrow bounds of this Order. What is the alternative to this subsidy? It is a larger subsidy, more money from the Government in order to help local authorities. Those of us who have had experience of all the Housing Acts during the last 20 years, with grants from the Government and contributions from the local authorities, remember well the Addison scheme, under which the local authority provided in England only a penny in the £ from the rates, the Government providing the balance. Scotland, because of the peculiar mode of rating her people, agreed to four-fifths of a penny, which was equal to a penny, being the difference between the net and the gross in the rating system. Money was poured out by the Government, and three-apartment houses, instead of costing £300, went up to £1,000, aye, and to £1,200. Still more money was poured out, but it did not bring more houses; it simply made the houses dear. Then we got so many other housing schemes—the Chamberlain scheme, the Wheatley scheme, slum clearance and overcrowding Acts, and so forth—but still Scotland remained as she was, in a pitiful condition with regard to housing. What the man in the street asks to-day is this: What is the matter with Scotland that she is not equal to England? England is solving her housing problem, but Scotland is not. I heard the right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), the other day in Committee, saying that not one person in Scotland—which was probably an exaggeration—was building houses to let.

Mr. Johnston: For the working classes.

Sir J. Train: He also at the same meeting described the rating system of Scotland as abominable and thought that that lay at the root of the evil, but he could not suggest a cure. We are not allowed to suggest a cure to-night under this Order, though some of us might have something to say on that. But what I want to say most particularly is that an increase in the subsidy would not, in my view, provide more houses, and I do not see that the Government could do any-


thing else at the moment. What is the alternative to passing this Motion that is before the House? It is to leave the local authorities without anything. The local authorities are to-day getting rather tired of putting their hands in their pockets and providing houses for the working classes, because, as we all know, many of the people who are getting these houses that are subsidised could very well provide houses for themselves under one of these owner-occupier systems, with the help of a building society; and if some of them were cleared out, there would be more houses for people who really need them.
There was another statement made by the right hon. Member for West Stirling, which rather staggered me. He said that bricks in Scotland are at 101s. per 1,000, in Glasgow. I happen to be a Glasgow builder, and have been during the last half-century, and I think that about half that price would be nearer the truth.

Mr. Johnston: I was dealing with a certain quality of bricks.

Sir J. Train: If the right hon. Gentleman is talking of very high quality bricks that are not used in house-building schemes, unless for a little ornament here and there, that is another matter, but the ordinary bricks used in housing schemes are about half the price mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Johnston: The exact kind of bricks to which I was referring were what are called "facing local selected bricks," in Glasgow, 101s.; free on rail in Edinburgh, 59s. 11d.

Sir J. Train: I observe that they are selected bricks.

Mr. Johnston: I will give the hon. Member other figures if he wants them, and tell him that in other bricks there is a difference, but it is not anything like so substantial as in the case of the facing local selected bricks to which I have referred. The point which I was making was that an explanation was demanded as to why there should be such a difference in price between the East and the West of Scotland for bricks presumably of the same quality.

Sir J. Train: The right hon. Gentleman says "presumably." He takes it for

granted that the bricks are of the same quality, but the quality of bricks to which he has referred is not that which is used in ordinary house building. If an order for bricks were placed to-morrow in Glasgow—where at present there are more bricks than bricklayers—bricks for house building could be got at half the price suggested by the right hon. Gentleman. I do not want any misapprehension to exist about this, and I do not want to say that the right hon. Gentleman is trying to mislead the House. But I want to make it clear that ordinary bricks for house building can be got in Glasgow to-day at half the price suggested by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. James Brown: Is the hon. Member not missing the point? It is not a question of the quality of the bricks but of the fact that, whatever the quality, there is a 50 per cent. difference in price between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Mr. Stephen: Why the difference between the two prices?

Sir J. Train: The right hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Brown) must remember that we are discussing housing, and houses as we know them round about Glasgow and the West of Scotland, in his constituency and mine, are built with these facing bricks. A few such bricks may be used here and there for ornamentation, but the houses are built with the ordinary common glazed brick which costs about 50s. a thousand at the present time. It is not only the cost of housing material, but the amount of labour required which brings about the necessity for the subsidy granted by the Government. This is a subject which we have all at heart and about which we are all worried. We all want to get a solution of the problem. But I do not see that a rejection of this Order would do any good. We must in this case support the Order and hope that in the near future there will be a big comprehensive scheme to grapple with the problem.

Mr. Johnston: Would the hon. Member be good enough to tell the Corporation of Dundee where they can get bricks at 50s. a thousand, because, if he can, it will mean a big saving to them?

Sir J. Train: It so happens that Dundee is a place which I know very well. I was once sent there by the Government in connection with housing


under the Board of Health, and I found that they had to bring bricks from Belgium. Dundee is not a place where bricks are made, though they have some stone round about there. Transport is what raises the price of bricks in Dundee. The same applies to Aberdeen.

5.4 p.m.

Mr. J. Brown: It has been remarked more than once during this Debate that this Order is within very narrow limits. I look upon those narrow limits as almost an insult to Scotland. Why should we not have had a proper Order on which we could have discussed what subsidy is necessary in order to have more house building in Scotland than there has been for some time past? I hope that English Members do not think that we are reflecting upon them when we compare the benefits which England seems to enjoy with the position in Scotland.

Mr. Quibell: We do not.

Mr. Brown: Hon. Members need not, because we love not England less but Scotland more. All we want is that Scotland should be raised to the same proud pre-eminence in this respect as England seems to enjoy to-day. I do not like to see the Secretary of State or the Solicitor-General for Scotland smiling at that remark. I would really like to make an indictment of them. I do not want to say things which are too hard, to one or other of them. But what we want is proper housing accommodation in Scotland, and we do not seem to be able to get it under the present Administration. Why should Scotland be considered inferior to England or to any other part of the world? Scotland ought to get the same conditions and facilities as any other part of the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Cathcart (Sir J. Train) is quite right in his reminiscences. I remember the present Prime Minister saying that the more subsidy was given, the dearer houses became, and the hon. Member ought to know why that was so and why it is still so. I shall not pursue that point lest I might be ruled out of order, but I put this question: Why should the Scottish Members of the Government acquiesce in Scotland receiving inferior treatment to any other part of the Kingdom? Surely we all desire proper housing and wish to do everything we can to prevent the evils which accrue from inferior housing.
As the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) has said there seems to be a sort of promise—although promises in these days do not seem to be of much account whether here or abroad—that this arrangement is to obtain only up to December next. If that is so, and if there is any real hope for better conditions in December, we will bear with this arrangement, with what patience we may and see what the Scottish Members of the Government—who ought to be as anxious for the well-being of our country as we are—are going to do. We shall see what they will be able to wrest from the present Administration, so that Scotland may have fair play. That is all we ask. Give us fair play and we will build the houses. Whatever restrictions there are at the moment, bricks can be got for Scotland as well as for any other part of the Kingdom, except possibly in the case of Dundee, which according to the hon. Member opposite, seems to be quite out of reach. We hope something will arise out of this Debate, and although no Division will be taken upon this Order, I hope that what has been said will be taken to heart in regard to the present position. I do not want to say anything harsh, but I think that position is due to slackness or inattention to the needs of Scotland, and I hope that Scottish needs will have more attention in the future than they seem to have had in the past.

5.9 p.m.

Captain W. T. Shaw: The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. J. Brown) is surely wrong in thinking that the subsidy in Scotland is lower than that in England. What I object to is that we do not seem to be making such good use of the subsidy in Scotland as they are making of it in England. I would like whoever is to reply for the Government to give us some better explanation than has yet been forthcoming of why the cost of housing in Scotland should be so much more than it is in England. The difference may be due to circumstances over which the Government have no control, or to inefficiency of Government legislation, though I can scarcely believe that that is the cause. It may be that the local authorities are less efficient and do not make such hard bargains, and I should like to have a comparison of the profits of builders and contractors in England with those of builders and contractors in Scotland.
It may be that circumstances are different in Scotland and I can understand that to build houses in isolated burghs must be more expensive than building in large cities. I should like to know, for instance, how the cost of building a house in Glasgow compares with the cost of building a house in Birmingham. Is it the case that we are building more substantial houses in Scotland? There must be some explanation and we are entitled to have that explanation, of why costs in Scotland are so much greater than in England. We ought not to be put off by phrases about "overloading." It is most unsatisfactory that we should have to go on passing legislation and discussing these Orders, unless we feel that in Scotland we are getting full value for the money.

5.11 p.m.

Mr. McLean Watson: My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) was very eloquent on certain characters in Scottish history or fiction who had borne the same name as the Secretary of State. I am not so much concerned about those individuals as about the Secretary of State himself. I wonder what he can do to improve the position of housing in Scotland? This Order, we know, is intended to keep things as they are only until the end of the year. The Under-Secretary in a very short and not very enlightening statement, told us that before the end of the year there will be discussions with the local authorities as to what the next arrangements are to be. I do not know whether the representatives of the Government expect that before that time, there will be such a revival of building Scotland that they will be able to afford to modify the subsidy. I shall be much surprised if, before the end of this year, the Government find themselves in that position. I venture to predict that before December the Government will be in an even bigger hole in regard to housing in Scotland than they are in at the moment.
It may be true that materials and labour in Scotland have been taken up with building other than the building of houses, but we are evidently going to have a great deal more wastage in that direction because of requirements on the part of the Government, and I cannot see any prospect of such a revival of

house building in Scotland as will enable the Government to bring forward next year a proposal to reduce the subsidy. I dare say that the Secretary of State will, by now, have received a document which was sent to him on behalf of the local authorities in Scotland who met in Glasgow on Friday last. At that conference, a resolution was passed which embodied the views of the local authorities on the housing subsidy as it exists and on the steps that ought to be taken to revive the building of houses for the working-classes in Scotland.
In order to give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity of dealing with the views of the local authorities on this very important matter, may I briefly indicate the terms of the resolution? It was passed unanimously by a conference representative not only of the large burghs but the small burghs and the county councils as well. The resolution deals first with the need for making available to local authorities building materials in regular and sufficient quantities. Their first concern is in getting the necessary materials for the building of houses. Those responsible representatives of local authorities in Scotland also drew attention to the fact that building materials for some time past had been used in luxury building, and they demanded that there should be a control by Parliament over the materials at present being used in luxury buildings. I am not sure whether that conference would have looked upon the Empire Exhibition that is being built in Glasgow as luxury building, but undoubtedly the building of that exhibition has had an effect on the cost of building materials and on the labour that would be available for the building of houses.
The third point mentioned in the Resolution was:
That immediate steps be taken by Parliament, in collaboration and co-operation with the building industry, for increasing, through the recognised machinery, the available labour for house construction.
There has been a shortage of labour in Scotland for some time, and the local authorities in the very interesting discussion that took place in Glasgow last Friday expressed their concern both with regard to the materials and the labour available for house building in Scotland. The resolution then came to the most vital point, and perhaps the Secretary of State


will tell us whether, in view of the expressed opinions of that conference, there is any prospect of his being able to come to the House next year with a proposal that a lower subsidy should be given for the building of houses in Scotland. The resolution proceeded to say:
That there is an immediate necessity for reviewing the subsidies and increasing the subsidies available to local authorities of £6 15s. under the Housing Act, 1935, and the £2 10s. unit grant under the Housing Act, 1930, such increased subsidies to apply retrospectively.
That was the demand of the conference. The other part of the resolution dealt with slum clearance and overcrowding. These are the vital matters affecting local authorities in Scotland, and I hope that the Secretary of State will not merely be content in getting the subsidy which at present operates in Scotland continued to the end of the year, but that we shall have an indication that when a new arrangement has to be made the alteration will not be in a downward direction.
On several occasions during the past year, and I think last year, I drew the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that certain local authorities have stopped building houses. I instanced Lochgelly as a case in point. By question and answer I have drawn attention to the fact that the Town Council of Lochgelly refused to go on with the building of houses, because they could not build three and four apartment houses at a cost which would enable them to let the houses at rents below 30s. a week—an absolutely impossible rent for any working man. Another case that I mentioned was that of the Burgh of Cowdenbeath, where the local authority, because of the shortage of building labour, was not able to go on with the building of houses. The cost of building materials and the shortage of labour have been the causes which have put a stop to house building in these two burghs. If the right hon. Gentleman or the Under-Secretary will examine the list of overcrowded burghs in Scotland and turn to the list that deals with small burghs he will find that the two burghs I have just mentioned stand at the top of the list with the highest percentage of overcrowding. There is urgent need for these two local authorities getting assistance to deal with overcrowding in their areas.
The right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), who so ably reviewed the situation in Scotland, drew attention to the position in some of the larger burghs, but here I am instancing two burghs which I represent, which stand at the top of the list of overcrowded small burghs, with 38 per cent. of overcrowded houses. Those two local authorities have the greatest difficulty in getting the labour and the materials necessary at a cost that will enable them to go on with their housing schemes. How much longer is this to go on? There is an urgent need for hundreds of houses to be built by both of these local authorities, but at the moment they are doing very little in that direction. They find that the subsidy is not sufficient to meet the costs that have been rising against them for some time.
The Under-Secretary seemed to take some satisfaction from the fact that during the present year there has been a reduction in the cost of materials. He seemed to think that if that went on, by the end of this year the situation would have been so improved that next year he could come forward with a proposal that there should be a reduced subsidy. We will see how we get on during this year. At the end of last year the Government had to confess that because of the shortage of labour and the continual rise in the cost of materials the position had become very desperate. I hope that we are going to have a period of reasonable prices which will enable the local authorities to go on with their work, because undoubtedly as a nation we in Scotland compare very badly with England. We shall have to go a long way before we are in the position of England, so far as the housing of the working classes is concerned. I hope that we shall get some satisfaction from the Secretary of State this afternoon, because I can assure hon. Members opposite that the position is serious.
So far as I know, no hon. Members opposite took the opportunity of being at the conference held in Glasgow last Friday, although I understand all the Scottish Members were invited. Had they been present they would have heard discussion first hand from the men who are up against difficulties as far as house building is concerned. One of the most interesting speakers was a representative of the County of Argyll.

Mr. Macquisten: Did he tell you about Campbelltown?

Mr. Watson: No, but he did put forward one of the most eloquent appeals in the form of a most cordial invitation to everybody to go to that particular part of Argyllshire for their holidays. He was advertising it as a holiday resort. That representative was, however, no more satisfied than the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten) is with the housing in that county. It was a most interesting and instructive conference, and I am sure that those who were present came away with the feeling that we in this House ought to do everything we possibly can not only to maintain the subsidy as it is to the end of this year, as we shall do if we pass this Order, but to insist that when a change is made it will be such as will enable the local authorities to go on with their work of getting rid of the slums and the overcrowding that exist in Scotland to-day.

5.27 p.m.

Sir Murdoch MacDonald: I am sure that every Scottish Member must wish to have an Aladdin's lamp, and if he had he would produce for all the inhabitants of Scotland houses which would be really fit and decent to live in. That not being the case, we have to proceed as quickly and as well as we can to produce houses. I have been interested in listening to the various speeches, each of which dealt with some particular phase of the problem. I was more than usually interested in the phase of the Debate with regard to the cost of building. I heard the argument as to the cost of bricks between my right hon. Friend and one hon. Member who represents a Glasgow division. I personally regret that houses to-day are mainly built of bricks. I should like to see houses built of stone, not so much in the great cities, where it would be more difficult to use stone, but in the outer districts of Scotland. Brick, lime and timber form the main elements in the increased cost of building, together with the contractors' profit.

Mr. Gallacher: That is the big element.

Sir M. MacDonald: It is a big and important element in the cost. In the last 12 months there has been a considerable increase in the price of houses in Scotland. If it be true, as has been alleged this afternoon, that some differentiation is

occurring, by accident, of course, in favour of the south of the border as against the north of the border, I, as a Scottish Member, hope that the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary will see to it that there is a fair balance of justice between the two parts of the country. If I understood aright, in the last 12 months the increase in the price of bricks has been £6 for a four-roomed house, which is a very large increase, but the increase in the price of timber has been £12 for that size of house. I cannot say that I followed the discussion between the right hon. Gentleman opposite and my hon. Friend as to the reason for the price being 59s. in the particular burgh and in another district over 100s.

Mr. T. Johnston: Fifty-nine shillings in Edinburgh and 101s. in Glasgow.

Sir M. MacDonald: The difference between the two figures certainly deserves more explanation than has been given, but the increase in the cost of timber, £12, is double the increase in the cost of bricks. Most of the timber comes from the Baltic. If the information which my timber merchant friends have given to me is correct, this rise took place suddenly. Would it not be possible for the Board of Trade, seeing that we have a reciprocal trade agreement with northern Baltic ports, and seeing that the balance of trade is very much against us, to interfere in the matter and secure some arrangement whereby the price of timber could be reduced?

Mr. Quibell: Does the figure refer to to a standard, or is it £12 per house?

Sir M. MacDonald: It is an increase of £12 per house.

Mr. Johnston: Does it affect England as well?

Sir M. MacDonald: I have the figures for Scotland, and I am not sure whether the increase is £12 in England or not. But I am sure that the price of timber has risen in England.

Mr. Robert Gibson: On what was the increase of £12?

Sir M. MacDonald: I am sorry I cannot tell, but it is an increase of £12 per house as compared with the previous period. I think an arrangement should be come to with Russia, because being a Communist country she sells all her


goods through one organisation. Perhaps the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) might assist in this matter.

Mr. Gallacher: I do not represent Russia in this House; I represent West Fife.

Sir M. MacDonald: But if the hon. Member has any influence at all in Russia it would be a most desirable thing if this extraordinary increase in the price of timber could be reduced. After all, it is the poorer people in Scotland who are affected, not the well-to-do. Whether the increase is £12 or £20 they can afford to pay, but poor people cannot. I think it is desirable that these timber prices and brick prices should be carefully examined by the Board of Trade in order to see whether something cannot be done to avoid such a great increase as has recently taken place in timber prices.

Mr. Maxton: Is the hon. Member trying to submit that the blame for the increased cost of houses in Scotland is on the Russian Government?

Sir M. MacDonald: I am saying that the additional increase of £12 for timber is due to a sudden increase last year in the price of timber imported from abroad, and I assert, and I think I am right, that Russia is the largest exporter of timber, and that if we can get Russia to agree to a more reasonable price the other Baltic countries, Finland, Norway and Sweden, would follow suit, and as a consequence the cost of houses would be lower.

Mr. Gallacher: If the hon. Member can get his friends to eliminate the contractors' profits, I will get Russia to reduce the price of timber.

Sir M. MacDonald: That is an excellent offer and I hope the Government will take full advantage of it. Not being a contractor I do not know how they stand, but, obviously, the great competition that has taken place in Scotland has caused a considerable increase, and I have no doubt that their profits went up as well. How to break the ring is one of the things which the Secretary of State will have to consider, if there is such a ring, causing such extraordinary increases without the ordinary workmen getting an adequate or comparable increase in their wages.

5.39 p.m.

Mr. R. Gibson: I have listened with considerable interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Inverness-shire (Sir M. MacDonald), and if he will arrange that the contractors' profits shall vanish and the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) will arrange that the profits on timber vanish also, perhaps I can take my turn and use my influence, such as it is, with the makers of bricks, to see that their additional profit vanishes too.

Mr. Macquisten: Could not the hon. and learned Member and I arrange with the others that there should be no legal charges?

Mr. Gibson: I would suggest that that would be verging on a pactum illicitum. In the matter of timber houses I received from the Secretary of State some information with regard to the number of wooden houses erected in Scotland since 1918. There are four county councils and three town councils which have built such houses, and in view of the fact that we are in urgent need of houses, and in order to make the best use of the subsidy, I think we should extend our borders as to the sources from which we get houses. In Scotland I find that Aberdeenshire has built 18 wooden houses, South Ayrshire, two, and the Department of Health has recently approved tenders for 38 additional houses to be built in the County of Ayr. Perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us the districts in Ayrshire in which these 38 additional timber houses have been sanctioned. The Fife County Council have 12, the Lanarkshire County Council have 60, the Town Council of Edinburgh 141, and the Glasgow Corporation 368. These are temporary wooden houses made of reconstructed Army huts, and I am interested to know whether houses of this nature have qualified for the subsidy. The City of Dundee has 80 wooden houses, four permanent wooden houses and 76 temporary houses, made of reconstructed Army huts.
When we are thinking of houses we are apt to be a little prejudiced in Scotland because we have been accustomed to the very substantial houses built of stone, chiefly of sandstone. In latter days we have accustomed ourselves to brick houses, general of rough cast. I think we should extend our borders and make use of timber for the building of houses. We have to bear in mind that on the


North American Continent no fewer than 100,000,000 people live in timber houses, many of them very elaborate, very expensive, a great many of them humble homes but yet very beautiful and cheap. One great advantage of the timber house is that it can be built rapidly and easily. My information is that in Hull two timber houses have been built in 11 days. That is surely an encouraging factor. These houses, I am told, are built of western red cedar, which is immune from dry rot, has the virtue of being vermin proof, and can be left exposed to the elements without any kind of preservative. These are surely qualities which should commend themselves to local authorities who are anxious to vary their housing programme in order to overtake arrears. Houses of this type are surely eminently suitable for rural areas where bricks and bricklayers may be rather difficult to obtain.
Again in Scotland we have many areas in which the underground working of coal mines causes very serious surface conditions. I have seen, when in the company of the hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson), houses which are very much affected by underground workings, particularly in Cowdenbeath. In the case of timber houses, the effects of subsidence are not nearly as serious as they are in the case of ordinary brick houses or, worse still, concrete houses. Once the concrete wall of a house is ruptured, it is very difficult to repair it.

Mr. Macquisten: Impossible.

Mr. Gibson: I am inclined to agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) that it is impossible to repair a break in a concrete wall due to subsidence. The effect of subsidence on timber houses is very slight, as the timber "gives," and in that way it is able to compensate for the inequality of the surface caused by under-workings. I understand that very extensive arrangements are being made, in conjunction with the Ministry of Health in England, for the establishment of standard tests in connection with fire resistance, and the results of those tests will be available soon. The tests will also affect the question of roofing materials. Timber will very quickly be graded when the demand grows, and the grading of timber for use for building purposes is, of course, very important.
With regard to costs, I understand that the fire insurance rate for a timber house works out at about 2s. 6d. per cent., which is not very far removed from the insurance rate for an ordinary stone house. I am informed that, even with timber at its present price, it is possible for the same amount of money to get a larger house than can be got by using other materials. With an increase in the number of timber houses constructed, the cost would very quickly fall, because the price of each house is lower when two houses are built than it is when one house is built. The use of timber for the building of houses lends itself to architectural effects that are not possible with either stone or brick. We look on the old timber frames of the Chester houses with admiration. In the old days, in the South of England, timber was the main part of the structure of the house, and bricks were merely put into the interstices between the solid oak wooden frames in order, as it were, to keep out the draught. The strength was in the wood. Nowadays, wood can be very quickly and very cheaply dressed for building purposes, and it can be put together economically, and certainly quickly, as is shown in the case of the houses to which I have referred. I suggest that the local authorities should not limit themselves to conservative types of houses, but should think of new means in order the more quickly to get over the very serious arrears in connection with housing, whih we all deplore, in the towns and cities of Scotland.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Macquisten: The hon. and learned Member for Greenock (Mr. Gibson) has made a very important contribution to the Debate. Housing in Scotland has been in a lamentable condition for many years—indeed since early history—and we have never been as well housed as the people in England. For military purposes, it was necessary in the past to crowd people together and to put walls round the towns, and people got into the habit of living in a congested way in tenements. Nothing is worse or more unhappy, especially for children, for people than living in tenements. The English have more space in their housing because England has been a peaceable country much longer than Scotland. In Scotland, there were the old tribal disputes, and people had to watch out for themselves; and the result was that the population


got into a congested way of living. The attempts which we have made by the local authorities, since we took up the question of housing seriously, and since private enterprise dropped building houses after the coming of the Rent Restrictions Acts, have not given any concrete results in the matter of housing the working classes. The hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson) told the House that houses are being built for letting at rents which no working man can afford to pay and instanced a rent of 30s. per week. It is nonsensical to think that working men can pay the rents that are asked, when they reach such a figure. I think the rents that are being paid for houses both in England and Scotland are far too high. In Scotland there is a rating system which very much increases the rents, and in some places, rates are exacted even upon empty houses, so that owners pull the roofs off, and the number of houses available is diminished. All encouragement to build houses has been taken away.
I do not think the local authorities are the people who ought to build houses. There are far too many local authorities and they compete one against the other, so that the prices rise, as prices always rise when there are a great many customers Moreover, a subsidy is a stimulus to increase prices. How can we dispose of this problem of housing? Those hon. Members who were acquainted with the late Sir Tudor Walters will know that he built houses for various local authorities at about one-third less than the cost at which anybody else could build them. He was able to do that because he was in a position to make gigantic purchases. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness (Sir M. MacDonald) has referred to buying from Russia as buying from one seller. We ought to have in Scotland a housing commission, with an expert like the late Sir Tudor Walters, who was a wonderful and a great-hearted man, at the head of it, which could buy in bulk. I remember the late Sir Tudor Walters once told me how he managed to get materials so cheaply. For instance, if there was a brickworks which was choked up with bricks, he said, "I will take all of them if you will let me have them at such and such a price." In that way he was able to build houses at one-third less than the cost at which anybody else could build them.

Mr. R. Gibson: Does the hon. and learned Member advocate the nationalisation of house building in Scotland?

Mr. Macquisten: No. I am advocating that the Secretary of State for Scotland should consider having somebody like Sir Tudor Walters and a housing commission to make bulk purchases and build by mass production, in the same way as some local authorities buy coal direct from the mines. I have not the full history of the enterprise run by Sir Tudor Walters, but it was an extraordinarily successful one, and I think it was practically on a non-profit or very small profit-making basis. He had his own lawyers and his own surveyors, and all the people he employed were animated by the same spirit as he was in trying to do the best for the working classes.

Mr. Quibell: Did he not put out the whole of his work to contract?

Mr. Macquisten: No, not all of it, and in any event, he got bedrock prices. What is now required is something of the same kind, one commission to do the buying and to take over the whole of the business. Of course, such a commission would employ local people and local contractors, but there would be only one person buying the materials. The way in which Sir Tudor Walters handled the labour question was to give the workers three or four years steady work. They knew that they would not be unemployed when the particular job on which they were working was finished, and because of that, they gave of their best, because they, like all mankind, were looking for security. The Secretary of State for Scotland ought to consider some such system, because we shall never get enough houses built if we go on as at present, with innumerable small authorities competing. Recently, I was at Campbell-town, and I have never seen anything like some of the houses there. The rain comes through the roofs, and the people put down buckets to try to catch the rain as it comes through. But the local authority is building as fast as it can to rehouse those people. In other places people say that there is favouritism, that some people can get houses and others cannot, and although one does not know whether that is correct or not, it is a fact that there is grave dissatisfaction with the local authorities all over Scotland. The local authorities cannot do this job, for


they have not the efficiency or the skill required, and I do not see how we can solve the housing problem until there is an expert and a centralised body to deal with it.
I would like now to refer to the question of wooden houses, which was dealt with by the hon. and learned Member for Greenock. The building of wooden houses is, of course, a very simple business. They can be put into sections at the forests, and the people can erect them themselves. In Argyllshire, the crofters would certainly be able to put up their own houses, and there are very few workmen who could not erect houses for themselves if they received the wooden sections. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) built a splendid house with his own hands, and if he has done it, I do not see why the working people could not do it. They would be able to do it if they received the sections.
There is no doubt about the lasting quality of wooden houses. I could show hon. Members in the town of Bergen in Norway, a country which is almost entirely wooden-housed, the great warehouses of the Hanseatic League, which are still sound and in full use. They are made of timber and are storeys high, and they were put up before the time of William Wallace. If wooden houses are properly constructed so that there is air below them, they will last as long as any other sort of houses, and certainly they would be very much better than the ordinary cheap brick houses that are being constructed in many places. As has already been pointed out, in areas where there is the possibility of subsidence, a wooden house can be so constructed and supported that nothing could happen to it. If a wooden house has a double wall, it is as warm as one could wish. Lord Austin once showed me some houses of elm wood which he had had constructed, and they were very satisfactory and beautiful to look at. If a really first-class architect designed the houses, and if the houses were constructed in sections and sent over from, say, Canada to this country, they could be consigned to the districts where the houses were required, and the people would have no difficulty in erecting them for themselves. There would be no more difficulty in doing that than there would be in erecting a sec-

tional motor garage which many of us have done. It is a simple matter of having the sections and the necessary nuts and bolts, and up the house goes. The building of wooden houses would go a long way to solve both the labour problem and the problem of expense of housing materials.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. Westwood: With reference to the point raised by the two hon. Members who have just spoken, it is all to the credit of the Department that they have, under the instructions of the Secretary of State, been taking action for the purpose of bringing together the local authorities to discuss this aspect of the question with the deliberate intention of trying to speed up housing in Scotland. I understand that last Wednesday there was a conference with the local authorities to discuss the aspect of the problem which we have been discussing to-day. It ought to be made clear by the Under-Secretary that the grants provided for in the Order before the House will be applicable, under adequate safeguards, to the building of suitable and acceptable wooden houses for the purpose of speeding up housing accommodation in Scotland. That point ought to be made clear because it has not up to the moment been made clear to the local authorities. Inquiries have been made, but the answers have been hedged round with far too many safeguards, and we ought to have a definite assurance to-day that inside reasonable limits every facility will be given for grants for houses of the kind discussed by the hon. and learned Member for Greenock (Mr. R. Gibson) and the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten).
The immediate subject before the House is the Order which continues the existing subsidies payable under the 1930 and 1935 Acts. It has been made clear by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) that we will not divide against the Order, but we are entitled to protest, as the local authorities are protesting, that on the very last day available this business is brought before the House. We know, on the statement made by the Under-Secretary, that unless the Order is approved tonight or to-morrow subsidies cannot be payable after 31st March. That leaves us far too little time to discuss a problem of this kind, and we on this side of the


House and the local authorities are protesting against leaving it so late. It has been made clear by the Under-Secretary that the average payable under the subsidies which are now to be continued under the Order was £10 15s. per house last year. Knowing that these subsidies are inadequate under existing conditions, under the existing rating system, and under the existing costs of building, to enable local authorities to build houses to let at rents which the working class can pay, the local authorities were pressing for a review of the subsidies long before March.
As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson), no later than last Friday, there was reaffirmed by the local authorities of Scotland a demand for increased subsidies to meet the increased cost of building and the new demands that have been made upon the local authorities by the provisions of the 1935 Act. There were discussions before 1st November, 1937, we are told, but I am rather afraid that some of the local authorities will be perturbed to-morrow when they read the statement of the Under-Secretary. I admit that while technically this Order continues the subsidies for three years, it is really an interim Order to give the Government breathing time for discussions with a view to amending legislation; but we have been told that if any adjustments are necessary there must be a fair distribution between the local authorities and the Exchequer. I hope that the Under-Secretary will amplify that statement; otherwise some suspicion will be created in the minds of the local authorities.
I risked the assurance at the conference last Friday—not being there as a Member of Parliament, but being present as a member of a housing authority—that there was an intention on the part of the Government to consolidate the two housing subsidies contained in this Order and to bring about some form of uniformity in subsidies. Can we have some statement of what is in the mind of the Government in the negotiations that are being carried on with the local authorities, because they are rather afraid that if it is to be a fixed subsidy per house it will create all kinds of difficulties? They are claiming that the principle of the 1930 Act for the provision of a subsidy based on the units that are to be rehoused is

preferable to a standardised subsidy of £6 15s., or even of £8 or £9 per house. They claim that a larger subsidy ought to be provided for the four-apartment than for a three-apartment house, and a still larger subsidy for the five-apartment house.
There are arguments in favour of the principle of the 1930 Act being applied to the 1935 Act, particularly in view of the standardisation of rents which is provided for in Section 47, Sub-section (5) of the 1935 Act, which carries along with it increased liabilities of local authorities where they are determined to give rebates to meet the financial needs of large families which have to occupy the larger houses. I would like to have some assurance as to what is in the mind of the Government. If we do not have it they will once again throw grit into the machinery that enables houses to be provided in Scotland, and very likely there will be a six months' hiatus in which the local authorities will be waiting, between now and December, for the new provisions which are being discussed with the local authorities.
No one wants to see a stay in house building in Scotland because of the conditions with which we are faced. Special reference was made by the Under-Secretary to the fact that in the discussions with the local authorities the level of building costs must be taken into consideration in fixing any new subsidies other than those which are provided for in this Order. I hope that in attempting to bring down the costs of building the Department will not try to reduce the standard of building. They have been trying it, and if necessary I can produce the evidence of unjustifiable attempts in that direction. I will give an illustration. Advanced local authorities which have been receiving the subsidies which this Order continues have been providing chromium plated fittings in place of the old brass fittings. The suggestion is seriously made by the Department in the interests of economy that they should revert to the old brass fittings.

Mr. Macquisten: What about the housewife who has to clean the brass?

Mr. Westwood: I am glad to say that there are those in administration who thought of her and refused to economise


at her expense. It was even suggested that wood that was 3½ inches deep should be reduced to 3 inches. It would take as much labour to put it in, but it would economise at the expense of the standard of housing. It was suggested in another case that cornicing should be abandoned. The housing authority in that case yielded on the first occasion, but refused to do so on the second occasion. I hope that in seeking to reduce the cost of building the Department will not attempt to reduce the standard on the lines I have indicated.
The local authorities have been appealing for something better than the subsidies provided for in this Order. Are they justified in making that claim? I suggest that they are. Under the 1935 Act the local authorities who are carrying through their duties are standardising rent. It has not been an easy job for some of them. It has not been easy for some of the convenors of these authorities, and I speak with some knowledge because of the deputations that used to come to my house to try and keep back the standardisation of rents in the town for which I was convenor. Let me quote from a memorandum prepared by the treasurer of that burgh, in which he points out, dealing with the housing pool:
'The pool has not yet felt the full impact of the relatively high costs for houses that are now building, plus the fact that by the giving of rebates, although rents have been standardised, there is no real increased rents going into the rent pool.
The Memorandum goes on to state further that in the case of that housing authority they would require an average increased subsidy of £6 15s. per house for the purpose of enabling them to keep rents at the figure at which they were fixed, which was an average of £2 per house more than was being charged for houses of similar accommodation within that particular burgh. If they did not get the increased subsidy of an average of £6 15s. it will mean an increase on the £4 10s. rate charged under the 1930 Act and on the £3 5s. rate charge under the 1935 Act up to the average of £9 per house. If that has to take place it will stop the building of houses in Scotland. One local authority whose housing finance I know very well has a rate of from 6d. to 8d. in the £ for the purpose of providing houses under the 1930, the 1935 and other

Housing Acts. They are willing to pay their existing rate charge of £4 10s. and £3 5s., the 50 per cent. charge in connection with the 1925 Act, and the four-fifths of a penny under the 1919 Act, but it will be impossible to get the average ratepayer to agree to increased rate subsidy, particularly in view of the fact that the Government are only continuing their existing rate subsidy under the provision now before us.
Let me strengthen the argument for an improvement as compared with the present position. On houses built under the Acts of 1930, 1933 and 1935 the all-in rate of grant has been tending to decrease as time goes on. The Under-Secretary has admitted that in 12 months there has been an average reduction of more than £1 per house. Let me give the figures for an authority about which I know the facts. In May, 1935, there were 412 houses completed which earned grant at an average rate of £11 12s. per house. In November, 1937, there were 1,148 houses, but the grant averages then worked out at only £10 6s. per house.
I asked the Secretary of State for a return of the number of houses approved for grant in 1936 under the 1930 Act, and I think the figure given was 13,000, whereas for 1937 it was only approximately 9,400. Those are the houses which were getting the larger grant, and as more and more houses are being built under the Act of 1935, getting the grant provided for in the Order before the House, fewer houses are being built under the Act of 1930 which are provided with a grant, if the full units are transferred to the house, of £12 10s. for a three-apartment house, £17 10s. for a four-apartment house and £22 10s. for a five-apartment house. With an ever-increasing number of houses getting grants under the Act of 1935 and an ever-decreasing number getting the grant under the 1930 Act, there is an average reduction in the grants payable by the Department.
Let me further fortify the arguments of the local authorities for improving conditions. Up to the 15th November, 1937, the average grant for houses built under the Act of 1930 by an authority which I have in mind was a fraction over £13 a house. For the half-year ended November, 1937, only 34 out of the 120 houses completed and occupied had been allocated to the Act of 1930. That illus-


trates that with an increasing proportion of housing allocated to the Act of 1935 the income going into the housing pool is less and less, although greater and greater charges are falling upon the housing pool. There has been a big reduction in the rate of grant comparing the average of May, 1935, with the average for the year 1937. In one authority with whose finances I am acquainted the average difference has equalled £3 6s. 8d. per house.
With these facts before us I trust that in any revision to be brought about full consideration will be given to the claim of the local authorities that something better should be provided than is contained in the Order before us. This Order covers not only the supply of houses, but the provision of amenities, such as community centres, playing fields and halls. How is it possible to get local authorities to respend to the well-meant desire of the Department to provide community centres, halls, and the like, when the grant is not adequate even to provide houses. For the reasons I have given we on this side shall not oppose the Order now, but we shall watch very closely the new provisions which the Government bring in, and we say that they must provide something far better than is in this Order or they will encounter the bitterest opposition.

6.20 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Elliot): Perhaps it will be for the convenience of the House if I now answer some of the specific points put this afternoon. We have had a most interesting Debate, one from which the party atmosphere has been entirely absent. It is true to say that certain subjects have been raised which went a long way beyond the strict limits under which we have to conduct this Debate. It would be out of order for me to go into detail about possible new legislation. It was agreed by the right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) that to raise the subsidy would require new legislation, and it would be out of order to do more than make a passing reference to it at the present time.
In the first place, let me deal briefly with the point made by the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood) that we are a little late in the day in bringing forward this Order. We could

have brought forward our Scottish business earlier, but we held it over for the convenience of hon. Members in all parts of the House, and on the hon. Member's side in particular. Therefore, I think we are not to blame that this is the very last day on which it was possible to discuss this business.
I quite agree that that is only, in a way, a technical answer, because he says that we ought to have come to an agreement with the local authorities long before. I think he will, on consideration, see that many arguments which he advanced as to why the views of local authorities should prevail can more reasonably be dealt with in the discussions we are having with the local authorities, and that it would be a little discourteous of me on this occasion to give an indication of what it is in our minds to put to the local authorities. If I gave that information to him in his present capacity as a Member of Parliament, I am sure that in his other capacity, one prominent in local authority circles, he would greatly resent the discourtesy done to him by such a prior disclosure when we are engaged in discussions with the local authorities. When one is engaged in discussions with a body of people any suggestions one may have to put before them ought not to be disclosed previously to a different audience. However, that consideration does not dispense with the necessity for the Government to reply to some of the points which have been put forward to-day from the point of view of the House of Commons.
It is common knowledge that there is great disquietude in this House and in Scotland as to the housing situation, and we must bend every effort to solve that problem. As long as the position remains as it is none of us, Government or Opposition, local authorities or central department, can feel in the least at ease, and it will need to be considered here or elsewhere until a solution is found. Some of the points raised are not completely borne out by the information at my disposal. The right hon. Member for West Stirling said that local authorities felt that with the existing decline in the subsidy they were unable to develop large programmes. A local authority with which we are both familiar, that of Glasgow, has of recent years, and almost of recent days, developed some very large housing proposals; and, in fact, local authorities


have schemes under way totalling some 37,000 houses, which is a programme far outwith the resources of the building industry of Scotland. It is not large plans but large execution of which we are short.

Mr. Maxton: There ought to be wholesale executions.

Mr. Elliot: Of course the hon. Member's mind turns to that kind of thing, but I refer to constructive rather than destructive execution. We have large programmes. Let me frankly pay this testimony to the local authorities, that they have not haggled, as was suggested by one hon. Member opposite. I think that the central authority when, under my predecessor, the late Sir Godfrey Collins, they brought forward the overcrowding subsidy, did not haggle with the local authorities, but brought forward generous proposals. Since that time the local authorities have gone ahead doing their utmost not to haggle but to submit large programmes, and the only thing with which we are not pleased is the tremendous lag in the completion of those programmes.
The right hon. Member for West Stirling rather objected to the word "overloading," and asked for some further definition of it. He said, "It is all very well to say the industry is overloaded, but it is not overloading at all, it is profiteering." I should not like to think that the two words were absolutely synonymous. When there is a tight situation, when labour and materials are liable to be diverted from one scheme to another, when people are competing for the resources available, we all know that contractors tend to quote higher prices—first of all, in some cases, actually to discourage a contract being given to them, and, secondly, to ensure themselves against the margins of risk, against loss of profit on the scheme, which inevitably arise when they do not know what labour they will get to finish it and in some cases do not know what materials they will get or to what delays they will be subject. Those considerations are what I mean by overloading rather than profiteering, which was in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman.
I have here a fairly extensive analysis of the causes of the rise of prices between

1936 and 1938. It is under four main headings—(1) increased cost of materials, (2) increased standard rate of wages, (3) extra cost due to the larger superficial area of the houses now being built. This list deals, to some extent, with the point made by the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood) that there had been pressure to lower the standard of housing. In fact, the standard has gone up, because whereas in 1935 the average area of a four-apartment house was about 840 square feet at the present day it is 920 square feet. The fourth heading is "Other items," including the extra cost of the improved finish of the houses, better fittings and architectural embellishments, and contractors' knowledge that they might find themselves bidding above the standard rates for labour, which, as we all know, has been a very active fact in some local authority schemes.

Mr. Gallacher: Can the Minister give us the percentages for those four factors?

Mr. Elliot: I will give better than the percentages; in a few minutes I will give the figures of the actual increases in the cost of the houses due to these factors.

Mr. Johnston: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what is the position of those four factors as between Scotland and England, that is the high cost of materials, the larger superficial area and other items?

Mr. Elliot: I will come to that aspect of the matter in a moment. I agree that it is very important, when the right hon. Gentleman asks where the differential comes in, because it is the differential which really interests us all. In regard to contractors, I was saying that sometimes prices very much higher than the standard rates both for labour and materials are paid. Furthermore there is the danger of a longer period of completion, which is one of the uncertain factors into which I do not wish to go again. I just mention it to the right hon. Gentleman.
As to the rise of £126 per house, we worked out the cost of materials, and decided that it amounted to £30 on a house. The second item, the increase in the standard rates of wages, not including special rates, might amount to £6 per house. The cost due to the larger superficial area would amount to £20 or £25.


The balance, in which is included the cost of improved finish, and the floating factors which have been mentioned such as the extra cost of labour and materials, and delay, would amount to something in the region of £65 per house. I could, of course, go further into this analysis now, but I do not think the right hon. Gentleman would wish me to do that, as I can see from his expression and can deduce from his speech that what he is concerned about is which of the factors apply specially to Scotland. I should say the last. The question of materials applies generally throughout the country and so does the question of standard rates of wages.

Mr. Quibell: Is the right hon. Gentleman investigating the increased cost of timber for houses?

Mr. Elliot: The figure is approximately £12 more for timber, £6 more for bricks and £2 more for light castings. Fireclay goods £1, cement £1, and other miscellaneous items make up the balance of £8. That is how the £30 is made up. It is interesting to note that the question of cement, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling raised, does not amount to very much. I have given the figure as £1. The comparative prices show that in January, 1935, the price was 47s. for the best English port-land cement delivered in Glasgow, in January, 1936, it was 45s. and it was 48s. in January, 1938. There really is not much in the actual price of cement. The figures I have given show that it has little effect on the cost of houses.

Mr. Johnston: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the building trade employers have alleged the greatest profiteering, particularly in relation to the last 3s. a ton put on by the cement combine. They made that allegation before the Board of Trade Committee on prices.

Mr. Elliot: I am not going to argue the matter at the moment. If it comes to £1 out of £126, that still leaves a great deal to be accounted for.

Captain Shaw: Do we understand the increase amounts to £65?

Mr. Elliot: I am putting that sum down as the unaccounted-for balance and it comes to something between £60 and £70. The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk will know that very often delay can make

a very great difference in the ultimate cost of carrying out a piece of work, not only a piece of housing work which you have let out on contract, but housing work which is done directly.

Mr. Westwood: Even when a contractor has to transfer a contract to another contractor it can also increase the cost per house.

Mr. Elliot: Those are all practical business matters with which we are acquainted in our experience. One of the results of the increased share which the Opposition have taken in local government means that there is first-hand knowledge of many business transactions and that they are able to sympathise with the difficulties of contractors who are putting forward schemes of work in this or some other connection. Again, I come back to overloading. This matter seems to me to present all the symptoms of an overloaded industry. The right hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. J. Brown) demanded fair play for Scotland. He asked why we should have inferior grants to those given in England. The reply is that you are not getting inferior grants to those in England. The grant in Scotland works out even to-day at £10 15s. while the corresponding English grant works out at something like £9. It is not a question of inferior grants but of asking why we cannot make as good use of the grants as they do south of the Border. That is the question to which we are always coming back.
We are a fairly hard-headed people and we like to feel that we are getting value for our money. We feel a little disconcerted when we do not get that value in regard to house building. I rather sympathise with the point of view put forward by the hon. Member for Cathcart (Sir J. Train) and the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) that merely increasing the subsidy would not by itself solve the problem. Under an overloaded industry our £60 or £70 problem would go up to an £80 problem, or even higher, and we should be in exactly the same position, except that a number of scandals would have arisen, either in the building industry or in some ancillary industry which this House would rightly demand to have examined. The difference between England and Scotland is the difference between an overloaded industry and one run at what you might


call a normal load. The problem arises, which of course I cannot go into at any length, how you can get our industry working on a reasonable load.
We ought to be grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Greenock (Mr. Gibson) who drew attention to the possibility of alternative methods. As he said, scores of millions of people living upon as high a standard of living as any people in the world, the working class in North America, live in timber houses. They are all the more desirable since, with the conclusion of the exhibition, a good deal of joiners will become available. Hon. Members opposite asked whether the exhibition had not meant a great drain upon the building resources of this country, and was it not true to say that this had caused a hold up in house building? I do not think it is so, because the main shortage just now is in the key-men, that is, among bricklayers and to some extent among plasterers, as hon. Members will agree who are acquainted with these matters. For all that great exhibition only 13 bricklayers were engaged, but there were 1,000 joiners. The conclusion of the exhibition will release not a great additional number of bricklayers but a considerable number of skilled woodworkers, who are accustomed to an analogous class of work to housing. For that reason and from that point of view it is very desirable that local authorities and others should give attention to alternative methods, particularly to the timber house, as a possible source of relief.

Mr. Johnston: Might not timber houses be dearer than brick houses?

Mr. Elliot: They might be cheaper, but I would not put that argument forward. I am dealing only with houses which are comparable in price, and which would be as lasting as brick houses. The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk asked me to satisfy the minds of local authorities as to whether such houses would be eligible for the full grant. They will be eligible for the full grant, if they comply with the conditions laid down by the Department of Health.
You come back to the question of speed and execution. Speed is essential and is desired by local authorities and the Central Department alike. The right hon.

Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) asked whether the shortage of houses was due to the rise in cost. I have already told him the answer. The number of houses being built and approved but not yet begun is still as high as it has ever been, even during the trough of low prices. That shows that the rise in cost has not discouraged local authorities from going on with houses. I think he would agree that the figure of 37,000 houses under construction and approved but not begun is as high as we have ever had in Scotland and shows that it is not a matter of the planning of houses but of the delivery. He said that he hoped we should make a statement of what we were doing. We come back not only to alternative methods but to a greater supply of labour and materials to complete the houses which are being built by existing methods. Fundamentally we are all conservative when it comes to housing. We want houses built as our forefathers used to build them. Many people would not mind going into a timber house, but most people prefer a brick house. I go further than that and say that people in Scotland prefer stone houses. They regard brick as suitable for such things as factories but not as a material that human beings should get into.
I attach the greatest importance to getting houses built by the traditional methods as well as by alternative methods. I have been pressed to produce further supplies of materials, and the brick-makers have responded, but if they saw us drawing the attention of local authorities to timber houses and other alternative methods they would be uneasy lest they should be left in the lurch. We have no intention of doing that. We will take all the materials that the building industry in Scotland will produce, and I am sure that the brickmakers will not in any way regret having gone ahead and produced greater quantities of materials, even though we bring in timber and other houses, possibly at an increased cost, to assist us.
The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) asked whether he could have a plain answer to a plain question: Was the Order intended to solve the housing situation in Scotland? Of course not; the Order could not be regarded as one which solved the housing position in Scotland,


but the Order, together with all the other steps which have been taken, and including the steps which we have yet not taken, will tackle, and I hope solve, the housing question of Scotland. With regard to the remarks of the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen), I do not deny that the responsibility for dealing with the situation comes back on the administration of the day. It may be that the roots of the situation go far back into the past; it may be that there are difficulties with labour organisations and other difficulties with which it is not for the Government to deal; but the fundamental responsibility falls on the Government, and anyone standing at this Box, as I do, must for the time being take that responsibility; and, in so far as the housing situation in Scotland is not satisfactory, I, so long as I am here, am responsible to this House, and shall be responsible until the situation improves. I was asked by the hon. Member for West Fife why, seeing that when it is a question of munitions employers and employed will meet together and pool privileges, make alterations in standing practices, and so on, I could not obtain by similar methods priority for house building. We have done these things, and have obtained priority for building through the organisations on both sides of the industry, and it is well known that improvements have been made and an additional head of labour has been procured; but of course there is not that sweep and drive which come when questions of peace arid war are under consideration.

Mr. Gallacher: The Prime Minister said that the Government were prepared to control industry in order to give priority to munitions, and I asked, why not control the building industry—the supply of materials and all the rest—and give priority to housing?

Mr. Elliot: I do not wish to be led away into an argument, but I can assure the hon. Member that that is not what the Prime Minister said. He said, in the first place, that it was very desirable to get the voluntary and willing co-operation of industry, and he was calling them together for that purpose. I did that with the building industry, and we got co-operation, but people sometimes feel that there is a greater urgency about things which cannot possibly bring them

benefit, but can only avert disaster, than about things which are demonstrably and obviously going to bring the greatest benefits to their own people. I sometimes wish that we could get the same sense of urgency in dealing with problems of this nature that we can get for problems of peace and war. I do not, however, wish to under-estimate what has been done. There has been a considerable improvement in the labour situation so far as local authorities' building is concerned.
The hon. Member for West Fife asked whether we were worse off than in England, where so much labour is now engaged in armament factories and so on, as against housing. The answer is that we are better off than is the case in England; a far larger percentage of our building labour in Scotland is engaged on housing than is the case in England, and the proportion has gone up, though not as much as I should like to see, in recent months. On 4th December, 1936, there were 2,627 bricklayers employed on local authorities' building in Scotland; on 4th December, 1937, there were 3,383. Of joiners, 2,220 were employed in December, 1936, and 3,278 in December, 1937; while of plasterers there were 1,108 in 1936, and 1,497 in 1937. At any rate, therefore, the figures are moving in the right direction, and I wish to express my gratitude both to employers and to employed for their co-operation in solving the problems of the normal industry, as against the additional problems of alternative methods, which, of course, we are also trying to bring into play for the purpose of solving these difficulties. The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) asked whether we were negotiating for a continuance or reduction of the subsidy, or whether there was any possibility of an increase. Clearly, we do not contemplate an increase by a further Order because the present Act does not envisage an increase, but I do not say that our minds are closed to the possibility of taking further steps to deal with the housing problem in Scotland. So far, however, as the Act is concerned, we could not give an increase without coming back to the House for further legislation.

Mr. Foot: The discussions with the local authorities will not be limited to the mere question of the continuance of the Act?

Mr. Elliot: Having listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk, we may be perfectly sure that the discussions will not be limited merely to the continuance of the Act, but that the local authorities, at any rate, from their side of the table, will make sure that that aspect of the matter is not overlooked. The hon. Member for Dundee also mentioned, as other speakers have mentioned, the range of the subsidies, and that point emerged from another angle in the speech of the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk. He said that subsidies should be given for building houses for young married couples, and I heard a similar suggestion from the hon. Member for West Fife. But if we are to concentrate upon anything in Scotland now, we must concentrate on the most desperate problem, which, as the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and the hon. Member for Camlachie will agree, and as I can bear out from experience in my own constituency, is, first and foremost, to get rid of the terrible dens and slums which exist. Indeed, the hon. Member for Dundee himself will agree that no city can show worse examples of slums than Dundee. That is the reason why the slum clearance subsidy is directing the building industry just now rather to the clearing up of the slums. That is right, because, first and foremost, we want to concentrate to the utmost that we possibly can on getting rid of these desperate conditions. After that, we shall have to move on to other problems, but, when there is only so much labour available, we must take first things first, and, in this case, worst things first.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) mentioned that large increases of costs in his own division had been partially abolished by his local authority refusing to place orders at these high prices, and he suggested that I could put that method into operation all over the country. Really, however, I think it is better that that should be done by the local authorities themselves. I fear that, if I were to try to take powers to control supplies of building materials, and, still worse, to control labour, I might easily cause shortage and damage which would make the housing position very much worse even than it is at present. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Forfar (Captain Shaw) asked a question about the cost of housing in Scotland, and how

it compared with England. I have dealt with that question in the figures I have given to the House.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson) referred to the resolution which has been passed by the local authorities, but I would point out again that many of these things we have been able to do. We have fulfilled their demands on many points, as, for instance, that there should be a more adequate supply of materials. I do not think there is any complaint now of shortage of materials. The question of control of materials for luxury building I have already dealt with; you cannot control that side of the industry without controlling materials and labour for all building.

Mr. Watson: The representatives of the local authorities put that point particularly before the conference.

Mr. Elliot: I am not arguing at the moment with the local authorities. When I am in conference with the local authorities, I will argue with them, and when I am in conference with the hon. Member for Dunfermline I will argue with him, but I do not think he could give an example where housing has been held up on account of shortage of materials. As to the control of building materials, I reject that because I could not do it without carrying it to stages which would injure, and not help, the cause of housing in Scotland. As for the increase of labour, I have given figures showing that there has been a very marked increase on local authorities' schemes, while as to the necessity for reviewing the figures of the subsidy, that review is at present in progress with my Department. I have spoken already of the helpful speech of the hon. and learned Member for Greenock. I was glad to note that he drew testimony from an unusual source in such circumstances, namely, from the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten). He suggested that a commission was necessary, and we are using that method as well. The Special Areas Housing Association is a commission of that kind. We are carrying out tests and experiments with a central organisation for house building in Scotland, and we may see those improvements which the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire said would result from operations of that kind.

Mr. Maxton: Has not that been done in the matter of crofters' houses?

Mr. Elliot: Not precisely. It is not merely a question of bulk purchases. I am not so certain that having one single purchaser for the whole of Scotland doling out materials to the local authorities would give us so great a degree of economy or acceleration as the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire suggests. We have had experience of buying centrally and selling to the crofters, but the conditions in the agricultural counties of Scotland differ very much from those of the great industrial counties or towns. I quite realise the position in which I should be with the Treasury if I bought a great quantity of timber of a rather inferior kind at a very cheap price, and I can also see a good deal of difficulty with the local authorities in Scotland. We have to try this method, and others, and I assure the House that it is being tried out now.

Mr. Westwood: Would it not be possible to try to get some arrangement between housing authorities in each respective county for setting up a central buying agency to enable them to purchase far more cheaply than is the case, for instance, in Fife, where 27 housing authorities go into the market to buy materials. Would it not be possible at least to have some association between the Department and the housing authorities in their respective counties on the lines I suggested?

Mr. Elliot: I should be willing to consider that, but the people of Fife are hard, thrawn people, and I do not wish to bring forward proposals and be told afterwards that it is none of my business, and I can keep out of it.

Mr. Westwood: Lanarkshire people are just as hard-headed as those of Fife. Will the right hon. Gentleman try it there? We are sometimes wise in our generation, as we have been in connection with the utilisation of water.

Mr. Elliot: I can only say that, if the authorities came forward with a suggestion for pooling their buying, I should be very glad to consider it, but I think that these proposals are greeted with less suspicion if they come from local authorities to the central Department than if they go from the central Department to the local authorities.
The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk brought forward several points with which I have dealt more or less. I will not elaborate an examination of them, but I will take them all into account and we will review them in the Department when we are carrying out the further examination which I promised we will undertake as soon as the Order is put through. We recognise that the situation is unsatisfactory and that, as long as it is unsatisfactory, the primary responsibility falls on the Government of the day, and more particularly on the Minister and the Department. I do not desire to shirk that responsibility, but I say that here and now we ought to pass this Order, and then we must continue to use every method we can, not shutting our minds to further legislation if necessary, to remove the standing reproach which we all feel rests on us as long as our people are housed as they are.

Resolved,
That the draft of the Housing (Scotland) Acts (Continuation of Contributions) Order, 1938, proposed to be made by the Department of Health for Scotland, with the approval of the Treasury, under Section 33 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1935, which was presented on the 3rd day of March, 1938, be approved.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING (AGRICULTURAL POPULATION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.

As amended (in the Standing Committee) considered.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Additional power of Department where local authority is in default.)

Where the Department, after having caused a public local inquiry to be held in pursuance of Section thirty-seven of the Act of 1930, are satisfied that the local authority have failed to exercise any of their powers under Part III of the Act of 1925 to provide housing accommodation for persons of the working classes who are members of the agricultural population, or under Section one hundred and twenty-five of the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897, in a case where these powers ought to have been exercised, the Department may, before making such an order as is mentioned in the said Section thirty-seven, make an order declaring the local authority to be in default and directing the authority to exercise for the purpose of remedying the default such of their said


powers, and in such manner, and within such time or times, as may be specified in the order; and if the local authority fail to comply with any requirement of the order within the time limited thereby for compliance with that requirement the Department may make such an order as is mentioned in the said Section thirty-seven.—[Mr. Elliot.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

7.4 p.m.

Mr. Elliot: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This is for the purpose of meeting an Amendment moved in Committee by the hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson). It was withdrawn on my pledge to look into the matter. I have done so, and I have set down this Clause. It is merely to allow an intermediate step between the local authority's powers being entirely taken over by the Department if the local authority is in default and a solemn warning being given to the local authority. I hope it meets the point that hon. Members had in mind and the pledge that I gave.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. Johnston: As far as we can see, the right hon. Gentleman has implemented the promise that he gave us in Committee to move a new Clause which would more effectively and more promptly carry out our wishes than the one that we moved in Committee. There is, however, one point that I should like to be clear about. As far as the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897, is concerned, dealing with the provision of proper sanitation, water supplies and so on, it is there that pressure by the Department on rural local authorities can be made most effective. Under this Clause a grievance has first of all to be notified to the Department and then there is a public local inquiry. After that there is a determination by the Department and they make an order declaring the local authority to be in default and directing it to proceed to remedy the default. Now the local authority is to be given a chance to do the work itself before the Department exercises its statutory power to do the job. I trust that this extra step that is being interposed between the local authority and the Department will not be used as an excuse for delaying applying the provisions of the Public Health Act in so many rural areas as has unfortunately been the case in the past.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. J. Brown) has been

collecting information about the number of defaulting local authorities. I believe that about a third of the inhabitants of rural Scotland have no sanitary conveniences whatever in their houses, that is, if the two or three sample cases that have been taken by the Committee on Rural Housing turn out to be the average for all Scotland. They took three tests and, if they are a fair specimen of the picture, 29 per cent. of the inhabitants of rural Scotland are living in dwellings where there is no sanitary convenience of any kind. This is an admirable Clause, but I trust that it will not be used as an excuse for further delay in applying the principles of the Public Health Act to housing.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. J. Brown: I should like to emphasise what my right hon. Friend has said. These tests were taken in districts that were likely to give the average conditions throughout the country, and, as he has said, they show that 29 per cent. of the inhabitants in those districts were without any sanitary conveniences whatever. We trust that all these things will be taken into consideration and that we shall see a vast improvement very speedily in sanitation.

7.9 p.m.

Mr. Macquisten: Unless the sanitary appliances that are put into these houses are quite satisfactory there is always a danger in them. I remember staying near a condemned village. It had been condemned for 30 years, but the people all lived to a great age and there was never any illness. I asked what the reason was, and I was told that it was because there were no sanitary conveniences. If the drainage is not good it is better to have none at all.

Mr. Brown: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman believe in a statement of that kind?

Mr. Macquisten: Conveniences should certainly be supplied where possible, but they must be very carefully supervised because, unless they are thoroughly first-class, they will be a source of danger. I hope that aspect of the matter will be taken into consideration.

Clause added to the Bill.

CLAUSE 5.—(Conditions applying to houses in respect of which assistance has been given.)

7.11 p.m.

Mr. Elliot: I beg to move, in page 7, line 43, after "house," to insert "granted by the owner thereof."
This is a drafting Amendment to obviate the difficulty that might conceivably arise in a case where assistance to build a house is given to a small landholder. It is right that he should repay the assistance if he fails to comply with the conditions, but it is not desired to expose him to the risk of the further penalty of ejection, and the object of the Clause is to secure this.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 7.—(Special provisions with respect to payment of compensation, etc.)

Mr. Elliot: I beg to move, in page 10, line 20, to leave out from "1931," to "shall," in line 21, and to insert:
so much of the value of the house as is attributable to the sum paid by way of assistance under Section four of this Act.
This is a drafting Amendment to bring the wording of Sub-section (2) into line with that of Sub-section (3).

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 8.—(Exchequer contributions to expenses of local authorities under Section 4 of Act.)

Amendment made: In page 12, line 6, after "sum" insert "(excluding interest)."—[Mr. Elliot.]

CLAUSE 12.—(Interpretation and Amendment of 60 and 61 Vict. cap. 38, Section 125.)

Amendment made: In page 13, line 23, leave out "adequate means of."—[Mr. Elliot.]

CLAUSE 17.—(Byelaws relating to accommodation for agricultural workers.)

Amendment made: In page 14, line 36, leave out "and" and insert "or."—[Mr. Elliot.]

7.14 p.m.

Mr. Foot: I beg to move, in page 14, line 40, to leave out paragraph (i).
This Clause is mandatory in form. It provides that a local authority shall make by-laws with respect to bothies, chaumers

and similar premises. In Sub-section (4) it is further provided that, if the local authority fails in the prescribed time to make these by-laws, the Department themselves may make such by-laws, which shall be of like force and effect as if they had been made by the local authority. The Clause provides a large number of matters in respect of which by-laws are to be made, ending with the words "such other matters as the Department may from time to time prescribe." Those words appear to be very wide indeed—much wider than there can be any need for. There are no words of limitation at all. Their effect is that, with respect to this particular class of dwelling, the Department may require to be made any by-laws that it pleases. What puzzles me, if it is necessary to have paragraph (i), is why it should be necessary to have all the other paragraphs. It would have been much simpler to provide that the Department should be able to prescribe any by-laws it pleased. That would have been much shorter and would have precisely the same effect. We have frequently protested against legislation of this kind.
This is simply another example of a Department in Whitehall asking for powers very much wider than it can possibly need for the efficient working of the Measure. I do not think that words of this kind, and powers as wide as these, should be conferred. They certainly should not be given without some kind of explanation. I hope that we shall have an explanation either from the Secretary of State or the Solicitor-General for Scotland. If it is to be the Solicitor-General for Scotland, I can only say that we welcome his visits to this House, rare though they are.

Mr. Maclay: I beg formally to second the Amendment.

7.17 p.m.

Mr. Elliot: It would be a pity if these words were left out of the Bill. Hon. Members will remember how it shocked us all very much when a certain unfortunate fire took place and a number of farm labourers lost their lives. It would be a pity if, through inflexibility in the Statute, we were unable to take advantage of the lesson of such an event. Obviously these authorities are not merely working in the abstract, but in the concrete. I beg the House not to tie their hands, but


to give the power which these residual provisions would provide.

Mr. Foot: Surely, it is possible, from time to time, to draft by-laws sufficiently flexible without giving the Government unlimited power.

7.18 p.m.

Mr. Johnston: May I put this point to the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot)? I live in the town where this disaster took place, and it is a matter of great difficulty for the local authority to draft by laws which would make absolute provision for the safety of a migratory population living in bothies and chaumers, where there is no regular or systematic supervision and where there can be none. As I understand it, the argument of the hon. Member for Dundee is that the words in the Bill give the Department much too wide powers.

Mr. Foot: Unlimited.

Mr. Johnston: They are not unlimited, because they are subject to appeal in this House. Any act done by the Department and endorsed by the Secretary of State can be challenged in this House. The Secretary for Scotland stands to be shot at in this House for anything he does to a local authority which makes it difficult for the local authority to function.

Mr. Foot: Yes; but if this argument were valid it would mean that the only check we need ever have over Government Departments would be the power to question them in the House. The right hon. Gentleman will remember the recommendations of the Donoughmore Committee.

Mr. Johnston: This is very different. It is the case of a migratory population, who are here to-day and gone to-morrow They are only in temporary habitation, and I do not think that this should be left to precise draftsmanship now, but that the Department should have the widest possible powers to protect the lives of these people. There is no question of exploitation. The Department have no interest in this except life protection. Many of these huts have no sanitation or lighting, and some are of the most primitive description. We think it desirable that the Department should have wide and flexible powers of intimating to local

authorities that, in a particular case, particular safeguards should be provided. If the Department go too far, the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) or anybody else can shoot at the Secretary of State.

7.21 p.m.

Sir R. W. Smith: I also am rather unhappy about this. The Secretary of State has referred to fire, but paragraph (f) mentions:
The prevention of and safety from fire.
I think it is unnecessary to give the Department this very strong power. If you are going to give such a list of powers as these, it is unnecessary to add:
Such other matters as the Department may from time to time prescribe.
It seems extraordinary that you are going to have by-laws that will apply to certain classes of property. If the by-laws are not carried out, who is going to take action? I think it is under the Act of 1897 that action has to be taken. There, the action has to be taken by the local authority; but, if the Department draw up the by-laws, does the Act of 1897 give them power to take action? Further, are the Department going to proceed against the landlord or the tenant? Many of these provisions are going to be supplied by the landlord, such as the building. That is to be understood. But, surely, you are not going to make the landlord responsible for the bedding, for the furniture and even for the clothing in the place? It seems to me that, by Clause 17, we are creating a very dangerous principle. If you are going to do all this, you should have drawn up your Clause, saying quite clearly which part applies to the landlord and which to the tenant.

7.23 p.m.

Captain Shaw: I am inclined to support the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) on this matter, because it is very necessary that these powers should be very clearly defined. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) talked about the dangers that there were, but there is a danger, under the Clause as it stands, that people would be very much worse housed than they are at present.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. McKie: I think that if we consent to these words remaining in the Bill, we shall be running a serious risk of having


all sorts of arbitrary by-laws, far beyond what is the intention of the Secretary of State. I am quite satisfied that, on the wording of the Clause, responsibility as between the landlord and the farmer for the housing of these workers will be properly apportioned. But if the Secretary of State will see his way to agree to the deletion of these words, he will go a long way towards meeting what, on reflection, I think he will realise are very reasonable fears, I do not often agree with the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot), but I think that, on this occasion, he has voiced real Liberal principles. If we consent to these words being retained in the Bill, we shall run serious risk of the Department making by-laws which the Secretary of State would not wish them to make, but which some hot-headed official in his Department might rush into making.

7.25 p.m.

Mr. Neil Maclean: I hope the Minister is not going to yield to this unholy alliance between the National Tories and late National Liberals.

Mr. Foot: What about the unholy alliance between the two Front Benches?

Mr. Maclean: That is a holy alliance. I think the case made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) is quite sound, and, while I have always been opposed to legislation by the method of bringing regulations into this House, on this occasion it is justified, considering the purpose for which such by-laws are likely to be used. They are to deal with migratory workers in Scotland, who are generally brought across from Ireland or even from large towns in Scotland. The ordinary accommodation, such as they might find in their own homes, is not available, and there is only temporary accommodation found for them. It is surely necessary, therefore, to see that they are provided with accommodation of such a kind that their lives may be safeguarded, as well as their comfort secured.

Sir R. W. Smith: I think the hon. Member is referring to seasonal workers, who are only there for a short time. But there are a great many farms where the workers live for the whole year. Is there not already power for dealing with the position of seasonal workers?

Mr. Maclean: While that is quite right, I fail to see why the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) made the speech he did. This is to safeguard not property but human life. It will enable the Department of Health for Scotland, the Secretary of State and his officials to prepare by-laws which will safeguard human life.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. Elliot: There have been questions raised which I can answer only by leave of the House. It might be to the convenience of the House if I replied to one or two points. The hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Sir R. W. Smith) is right in suggesting that there is power in regard to seasonal workers in the existing Act; and that, I think, answers the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie), that some hotheaded official might press through unreasonable regulations. I think it also answers the case of the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot), who seemed to think that there was something entirely novel in this. He will, in fact, find that, as far back as the Act of 1925, there were similar provisions for dealing with particular cases. Surely, he would not suggest repealing the Act of 1925 in this respect?

Mr. Foot: I should certainly suggest the cutting out of a provision of this kind from any Act.

Mr. Elliot: We find ourselves at issue there. I think that it is desirable that this provision should be made in the Bill. I will reply to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Aberdeen (Sir R. Smith) as to the question upon whom the responsibility will fall. The responsibility will fall upon the farmer, and that will be made clear in the by-law. There is no necessity for making it clear in the Clause. The question of who shall be the responsible person is inherent in the power to make by-laws. The duty of enforcing the by-law would fall upon the local authority even if the by-law were made by the Department. That, I think, meets the specific point made by my hon. Friend, and upon the general point, I hope that the House will not take a retrograde step.

7.31 p.m.

Mr. Foot: The right hon. Gentleman has not met the point behind the Amendment, which is as to why such very wide


and general words need be used. Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman use words something like these, "Such other precautions as may be necessary to safeguard the health and safety of those living in the dwellings." I do not say that I have framed the words very well, but words of that kind frequently appear in Acts of Parliament. It would have been a simple matter to get some phrase of that kind which would have met the point of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) instead of using words which are so general that, with respect to these dwellings, they give power to acquire any by-laws whatever.

7.32 p.m.

Mr. Elliot: The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) and his hon. Friends have legal advice at their disposal, and the hon. Member himself possesses legal skill, and if he had placed some such an Amendment on the Order Paper I would have considered it just as I would consider an Amendment from my own side of the House or the opposite side. The question before us now is whether we should omit these powers or not. I cannot see my way to omit them, and I beg of the hon. Gentleman seriously to consider whether he wishes to press the point.

Amendment negatived.

CLAUSE 19.—(Interpretation.)

Mr. Elliot: I beg to move, in page 16, line 18, after "persons," to insert "of the working classes."
This and the following Amendment have been put down to meet the point made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) and others during the Committee stage of the Bill, that it might be possible for assistance to be given to persons who could perfectly well do without it, such as well-to-do farmers and others. I undertook to see whether I could meet that point, and I think that the Amendment meets it.

7.34 p.m.

Mr. Johnston: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and the Government upon defining, at long last, "agricultural population" for the purposes of this Bill in such a way as to preclude from receiving subsidies under the Bill classes

who, I am sure, no section of the House would intend to benefit. The right hon. Gentleman will recall that, on Second Reading, we begged of him to do this and pointed out that, as the Bill stood, a local authority could give subsidies to anybody who had not the remotest possible connection with agriculture, and that the working classes could be kept out. We tried to get him to widen the Measure to bring in rural workers, but he was precluded from doing that by the Title of the Bill. On Second Reading we tried to get him to exclude the wealthier members of the agricultural community, who ought not to receive public assistance in the way of housing subsidies at all. He declined to accede to the request, and on the Committee stage he could not see his way to do so. I am afraid that he persuaded the Committee not to agree to my Amendment, but I am glad that at long last he and the Government have decided on the steps they have now taken. I am sure that it will make the Bill a great deal more workable and that it will obviate a very great amount of friction and trouble in the villages of Scotland. Therefore, on behalf of my hon. Friends, I very gladly accept the proposal.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: The Secretary of State for Scotland in Committee upstairs, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) says, used all his eloquence in order to persuade the Committee not to support the Amendment put forward by the right hon. Gentleman, but despite the efforts of the Secretary of State three of us remained impervious to his pleading and voted for the Amendment. The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Kennedy) and myself held the fort for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling, who was not there. We are very pleased to know from the Secretary of State that we took the right attitude at that time, and that, instead of alhering to his own point of view, he has been won round to the point of view of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling and has accepted the Amendment.

7.37 p.m.

Mr. Mathers: The words which have fallen from the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) have caused me to


rise to inquire of the Secretary of State whether the statement he made in Committee, that the words in Clause 1, at the top of page 2, referring to Part III of the Act of 1925, did not actually apply, or whether, alternatively, these words which he now seeks to put into the Bill are really necessary. He explained in Committee that these words were not actually necessary, because the position was governed and safeguarded by that part of the Clause to which I have made reference. I would like to know for my own satisfaction, as, I believe, would other hon. Members who accepted the very definite statement of the Secretary of State in Committee, what actually is the position, and whether these words are put in as an act of grace, or whether they are actually necessary from the legal point of view?

7.38 p.m.

Mr. Elliot: I can speak again only by leave of the House.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman says that he can speak only by leave of the House, but, being in charge of a Bill reported from a Standing Committee, he can speak more than once on the Report stage without asking for leave, and that also applies to the hon. Member who moves the Amendment.

Mr. Elliot: I apologise for my temporary lapse of memory with regard to the Rules of the House. As far as I know, the whole Bill is governed by Part III of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1925, which gives power to provide houses for the working classes only. It was my contention upstairs, and it is still my contention, that it is not absolutely necessary to put these words into the Bill, and, therefore, I am afraid that I cannot accept all the praises which have been heaped upon me by the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher). At any rate we have brought the Bill into harmony with the views of all sides of the House, and I have no objection to putting in these words for defining the objects of the Bill and showing the legal effect of the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Consequential Amendment made.

Mr. Elliot: I beg to move, in page 16, line 26, to leave out "as aforesaid."
This is a drafting Amendment

Amendment agreed to.

7.41 p.m.

Mr. Wedderburn: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
There have been very few substantial alterations in this Bill in Committee, and it will not be necessary for me to say more than a very few words in moving the Third Reading. On the Second Reading there was some criticism of Part I of the Bill on the ground that it was confined to rural areas and that the town councils were precluded from receiving the higher rate of subsidy in respect of agricultural workers within their boundaries. I am glad to say that in Committee it was possible to remove that differentiation, and the town councils who have members of the agricultural population within their areas will now be able to obtain the special subsidy to re-house them. In the case of large burghs, that is, burghs with a population of more than 20,000 persons, the definition of "agricultural population" is restricted to persons actually engaged in agriculture. It was agreed in Committee that that was a reasonable restriction, since in a large burgh the retired worker or the worker in an independent industry can be provided for under the local authority's general housing operations.
Both on the Second Reading and in Committee hon. Gentlemen opposite resisted the proposal to give grants to private owners for the replacement of unsatisfactory houses. But everybody agreed, I think, that in some districts in Scotland, and in certain geographical circumstances, it is necessary for farm servants to live on the farm, and I am sure that nobody would wish to do anything which would prevent them from getting better housing conditions. The Government accepted the view of the Housing Advisory Committee that wherever practicable farm servants should be housed off the farm, and the House will remember that in Clause 4 it is directed that local authorities shall not give a grant for replacement unless accommodation suitable to the requirements of the worker and his employment is not available in the locality and it is not practicable for the local authority to provide such accommodation under a general housing scheme. The main point of difference in the Committee was that hon. Gentlemen opposite thought that, in particular cases, local authorities should


satisfy the Department that they could not provide the houses themselves. I agree that it is desirable that the Central Department should have general control over the administration of local authorities, but I am satisfied that Clause 4 is sufficient to give this control.
I think that if we were to have applications for grants for the replacement of tied houses brought before the Department, it would be bad administration and would lead to delay in getting agreement between the Central Department and the local authorities on the facts and merits of each case. It may be worth recording that on this Clause, as it originally stood, the owner receiving assistance to erect a new house might omit the provision of a bath if he could satisfy the Department that the provision of a bath was not reasonably practicable. The Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) asked me a question about it on Second Reading. In order to meet the views of many hon. Members, the Clause was amended to require the provision of a bath in every case.
I think there is only one other matter to which I need refer. My right hon. Friend and the Minister of Health propose this week to introduce a Bill extending the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts for a further period and making certain changes to increase the usefulness of their provisions, and I need hardly remind the House of the value of these Acts in dealing with rural housing problems in Scotland. Under their provisions works of improvement have already been completed in over 25,000 cottages, and works are on the way in another 5,000, and in addition to the usual circulars which will be sent to the local authorities, we are considering the issue of pamphlets explaining in simple, non-technical language, what can be done and what assistance can be obtained under both these Acts towards the improvement of rural housing.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Johnston: I will not detain the House for more than a few moments, because we are all tired of the long discussions upon this Measure. I certainly am. I am sure that we have to some extent improved the Bill in its passage through this House and in the Standing

Committee, but there is one essential principle of the Bill to which my hon. Friends and I take serious objection, and that is the provision of a subsidy to a private owner for the building of a new tied house to replace an old tied house. Here is a situation in which sums of money amounting to an annual subsidy of from £10 10s. to £15 may be given, over a period of 40 years, to a private individual to replace an existing derelict cottage or house upon his property. He may let that house on a contract of service to an employé on his farm, or the farmer may do it for him, and there is, as I understand it, an 87½ per cent. further subsidy in the way of derating on the value of that new building put upon the farm. If, in course of time, the landlord should dispose of his property, he will have received a considerable augmentation to its value, and he may dispose of it as he chooses.
What is happening here is this, that the proprietor or the farmer, housing his worker as a condition of service, may discharge that workman at the end of the hiring term, which would be in Scotland a six-monthly period. The farm worker goes, and there is no protection for him under the Rent Restrictions Acts or anything else. The proprietor has had added to his property a very considerable sum of money, and we, for our part, say that in the first place, so far as possible, there should be no tied houses whatever. We were prepared to admit that in exceptional cases, the cases of stockmen and so on, such houses might be necessary, but we said that where they were necessary and a private individual wanted to put them up, it ought to be at his own expense.

Mr. McKie: Is the right hon. Gentleman not confusing a tenant farmer with a landlord? If the occupier is the owner of the land, his argument holds good, but in many cases he is not.

Mr. Johnston: I agree. There are innumerable cases where the landowner is a separate person from the farmer, and there are innumerable cases where the farmer is also the landowner. What I was thinking of for the moment was the case where the landowner is a separate person from the farmer. The landowner, therefore, has his property improved if he gets a new building upon it at the public expense. If we are going to take a


40 years' subsidy at £15 per annum, if that is to be the subsidy to a private owner, there will be precious little left for anybody else, particularly if the owner is in some contractual way friendly with the local builder and so on and gets his prices fictitiously run up, as has been done in innumerable cases under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act.

Mr. Elliot: Is the right hon. Gentleman not confusing this a little with the local authorities' subsidy? The fact is that there is a lump-sum payment, which cannot come to more than £200. In Scotland, at any rate, the assistance to private individuals is given by a lump-sum subsidy.

Mr. Johnston: Has the right hon. Gentleman not taken power to give an annual sum?

Mr. Elliot: No.

Mr. Johnston: Then the right hon. Gentleman is going to give a lump sum down in every case to a private individual in Scotland. I am talking of building a new house in place of an existing bad building, and I take it that the right hon. Gentleman will insist that in every case the private landlord is only to get a lump sum down, to a maximum of, say, £200. Then the landlord, to the extent of that £200, will have had his property added to in value, and in that case he will be the owner of the property, and he will charge the farmer something for it. [Interruption.] If a landlord's property is augmented in value and a new farmer comes along at the end of the existing lease, the landlord will add to the rent if he can get it from the new tenant. Of course he will. That has been the history of landlordism in Scotland for hundreds of years. The property is being added to in value. In addition to that, if my information is correct, and if I have read the Bill properly, 87½ per cent. of the local rates are going to be relieved on that property. Who bears that relief? The shopkeepers, the workers, and the other people who are getting no benefit under this Bill.
I would remind the Under-Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie), who seems to be supporting him, that 20 years ago a Royal Commission sat and examined this problem. There were men like Dr. Leslie Mackenzie and Sir William Younger on that Com-

mission, who signed its report in 1917, and this is what they said:
Local authorities should build such houses and let them to tenants. In any event we cannot believe that public sentiment will permit of public funds being used to erect houses whose occupation shall be in the absolute control of employers.
That was 20 years ago, and they added:
The public interest is served if proper housing for the workers is provided, but it cannot be expected to expend public funds in safeguarding an employer against a risk that every other employer must take. It is also only reasonable that the local authority should arrange the tenure of houses to suit the conditions of employment.
I repeat that the tied house, the condition-of-service house, means this, that the worker does not have the full rights of citizenship, that he never has had them, and that he never can have them. I say that this is bad for the children. I have seen evidence showing that in the case of farmers who move from one district to another every so often, their children at the local schools cannot receive a proper education, because they are always on the move. It is bad for education and bad for everybody concerned. I conclude that we ought not, at this time of day, to be providing public money for private owners of property, that if a proprietor finds that a special condition of service on his farm requires a tied house, he ought to provide it, but that, so far as the public is concerned, we are willing to provide houses in the village with conditions of tenure the same as for every other class of worker, and that we should free the agricultural population from this last badge of servitude, the tied house.

7.58 p.m.

Mr. Quibell: This Debate has disclosed a state of affairs that some of us on these benches find very surprising indeed, and while the Minister and others in all parts of the House have welcomed the Bill as necessary, particularly having regard to the conditions that obtain in the rural parts of Scotland, I am wondering what finally will be the result of it. If the housing programmes of the local authorities in Scotland already are unable to be carried out to the extent that the right hon. Gentleman would have liked, on account of the shortage of labour, what it will be like when you start to rebuild under this Act in the rural villages of Scotland, I cannot understand. It seems to me that, so far as the efficient working of this Bill is concerned, it depends very


largely on our being able to mobilise more labour. I do not deny—in fact, I think it is long since due to the country villages—that houses should be built on the countryside, and when it is disclosed, as it has been in this Debate to-day, that some 29 per cent. of the cottages in the rural areas are entirely devoid of any sanitary accommodation whatever, all that I can say is that my Scottish friends must pardon me for interfering and reminding them that the local authorities in England have evidently done their business very much better than have the local authorities in Scotland, and that this condition of affairs is a very serious reflection on both the central Government and the local authorities in Scotland.
I shall be pleased if the Minister shows us what steps, if any, can be taken to remove the grievances which undoubtedly exist in Scotland. One of the weaknesses of this Measure is that it perpetuates the tied cottage system. We have tied cottages in England and most of us who have had experience of the system consider it one of the worst abominations in the life of the countryside. I cannot regard the inclusion of a Clause providing for a continuance of the tied cottage as otherwise than a danger to the liberty of the individual. The man who is tied to his cottage is, in nine cases out of 10, tied to his employer, and while there are enlightened employers who do not use the system in the way in which it was formerly used, I know of other cases in which it has been used in an abominable manner by farmers in certain parts of our country. The agricultural labourers, particularly those in organisations, are very much against it.
In regard to the hypothetical sums which have been mentioned as payments by way of assistance we are told that they may be £160, or £180 or £200 or indeed one-half the cost of the house—I suppose whichever is the most. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] At any rate they are on a graduated scale up to £200. The amount will vary in different districts. I cannot say anything about conditions of building in Scotland. I fancy that they vary from district to district but I cannot see why they should vary to the extent indicated by the Bill. There has been considerable discussion regarding prices of materials and I very largely share the view expressed by the Minister that the

bigger the subsidy, the higher the prices of building materials seem to go. That has been my experience in connection with this trade and Scotland seems to have provided a particularly bad example of this tendency. The Ministry and the Government would do well to look into some of these increases which cannot, I think, be justified.
Let me give one practical example. In a certain town a fair-sized contract has been let for local bricks at the rate of 50s. per thousand. The gentleman who received that contract actually made a contract for bricks of superior quality, which had to be conveyed 100 miles, at 6s. 6d. per thousand less than the price in that town. He brought them from Peterborough—Fletton bricks—at 6s. 6d. per thousand less. While, as regards manufacturing costs, there may be some slight advantage in the fact that there is a different quality of clay at Fletton which requires less coal in the burning, it does not account for the tremendous difference in price. Then, the price of light castings in certain parts of the country is an abomination. I think if these things were properly examined by a committee, certain very interesting facts and figures might be produced. At one time bricks could be bought at 22s. 6d. per thousand or 30s. per thousand delivered to the job, they have now risen to three times that price. Labour only costs twice as much and clay the raw material has not increased at all.
One wonders whether that committee which inquired into building material prices has not been rather easily deceived, and whether the Government are not taken in by specious excuses for these increases. One can go through all the things which are used in the building trade and it will be found that the increases in these prices are reflected not only in the cost of housing but in the number of houses that the Ministry and the local authorities can afford to build. The fact has been disclosed that the increase in Scotland is disproportionate to the increase in other parts of the country. I hope the Minister will look into some of these cases of increased prices to see whether they are justified or not.
I welcome the Bill as making some provision for the agricultural workers. My only regret is that the agricultural labourer should always be regarded as being in a special category requiring


 provision to be made for him. We  his poverty line. He is  below the ordinary level all the  We have always to provide him  special houses and special schemes  kind. Everything has to be  in his case—which simply means  he is being stabilised as the bottom  We have to pass special legislation  order that his conditions of life shall be stabilised at the lowest level as far as housing and nutrition are concerned. My view is that the one thing we ought to do for the agricultural labourer is to raise him to the level of the rest of the community. If we did that he would pay his own rent and would not want special housing legislation or subsidies either for himself or for his industry. What he wants is equality with the rest of the working people, and, until he gets it, we shall never rest content in the countryside.

8.9 p.m.

Sir A. Sinclair: I agree with the hon. Member who has just sat down, with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), with the Caithness Committee on the wages conditions of farm servants and with the advisory committee on rural housing in Scotland, that the tied house is an evil, but, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling pointed out in his Second Reading speech, for people who are employed in certain agricultural occupations under the conditions in which agriculture is carried on in Scotland, tied houses are necessary. In Scotland, farms are more scattered than they are in England and there are even greater distances between the villages and for certain people in certain occupations such as that of looking after cattle it is necessary that they should be housed on the farm. The Under-Secretary in the Second Reading Debate, assured the House that every effort would be made, in the spirit of the reports of the departmental committees which I have quoted, to deal with this question. I hope that every effort will be made to cut down the tied house system to the lowest possible limit and that the local authorities will be encouraged to build as many houses as possible for farm servants, in order that as many as possible of those farm servants shall be free from the tied house system.
Apart from that, my principal objections are not to what is in the Measure but to what has been left out of it and it would be out of order to discuss those objections on the Third Reading. There is, however, one point in the Bill to which I raised objection on the Second Reading. I refer to the position of the landholder under this Measure. The Under-Secretary did not satisfy me about it in his Second Reading speech. Anybody who knows the position of the landholder in relation to compensation will understand my modest reluctance to undertake the task of amending the Bill in Committee in this respect, because extremely complicated legal considerations are involved. I regret that the Government have not seen their way to undertake that task and even now, I ask them to consider whether something cannot be done to meet the point in another place. Briefly, the position is this, that under the Bill there is no inducement to the landholder to scrap his old house and build a new one. The amount of the new grant which he will receive will probably not be more than one-third of the cost of a new house. It may be said that the old house will be a thoroughly bad house and that the amount of compensation which he would lose in respect of it would be very small, but such is not the case. The old house will, at any rate have a "stone and lime" value, and in many cases for houses which certainly would not be up to the standard laid down in the 1935 Act compensation as high as £150 is being given by the land court to landholders.
There is no inducement in this Measure therefore for the landholder to scrap his old house and lose his claim for compensation amounting to anything up to £150 and to embark upon the building of a new house with a subsidy of probably only £150 or at the most £200 under this Bill. The subsidy which he would receive would go back to the local authority and the rest of the money which the house would have cost, he would have had to borrow from the Department of Agriculture. He would have to repay that loan and would be left without any claim for compensation. Therefore the tendency of landholders in Scotland, faced with this Measure, will be to hang on to the old houses as long as possible and to refuse to make use of this Bill. It would be otherwise if there were


arrangements by which the amount of the loan which the landholder would receive from the Department for the building of the house, could be scaled down in proportion to the value of the house to the incoming tenant, as ascertained by the land court. If that guarantee and that safeguard of the position of the landholder could be introduced, it would make this a much more useful Measure.
The other point about the Bill which I, in common with other hon. Members, regret is that it confines its benefits to the agricultural population and leaves out of its scope the fishermen and others who dwell in the country district. That however, only lends additional importance to what the Under-Secretary said about the Housing (Rural Workers) Act. I hope there will not be much delay in the introduction of that Measure. It is equally vital and fundamental if the housing problem in the country districts of Scotland is to be solved that there should be adequate provision for drainage and water supply. I agree with those who have spoken as to this Measure being a step in the right direction. The Government have certainly acted with promptitude. They only received the report last summer and the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary have shown their personal appreciation of the importance of the problem in the rural districts of Scotland. I hope that the Bill will exceed the expectations that I have formed of its success, and that it will fully come up to those which the Government entertain.

8.16 p.m.

Mr. McKie: I am very glad to have the opportunity of following my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) on this occasion. Earlier in the evening I found myself acting in collaboration with the junior Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot). Therefore, this evening I have been directly concerned with the last two vestiges of independent Liberalism in Scotland. I hope there is nothing wrong in that. I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on his speech and on the hope he held out to us, in moving the Third Reading, that at a very early date the Secretary of State will submit proposals for certain departures in the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, 1930,

which, may I say, was an  Measure, although passed by a  Government.
I hope my hon. Friend the  Secretary was thinking of the fears  I expressed on the Second Reading  garding certain people who would  seriously affected by the proposals in to Bill, and which fears may now in largemeasure be removed. The right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) went back over the old arguments about the evils of the tied house. He waxed very eloquent on the subject, and I had the temerity to interrupt him because I thought he was in some confusion of mind as to those who hold the responsibility for the people who are living in tied houses. He seemed to me to be visiting the iniquities of the tenant farmers upon the heads of the unfortunate landlords. He said, and it is true, that there are a great many owner-occupiers. The soil of Scotland—I am speaking from memory—is, I think, apportioned between the owner-occupiers and the landlords in something like the ratio of 40 and 60 per cent. From that statement of fact it will be realised that there are very many people who will be affected by the passage of this Measure who have no direct responsibility for the workers upon the soil.
On the Second Reading I expressed a fear regarding the financial position of some landlords, and I hope my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling will agree with me on that point. He said that any advances that might be made to the landlord under this Act would be in the nature of a dole, and that the landlord would be able to reap some immediate benefit. Surely, he must remember that there are many leases of 7, 14, and in some cases 15 years, running. There may be some cases of the old 19-year leases. I think I shall have the approval of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. J. Brown) on that point.

Mr. J. Brown: On that point.

Mr. McKie: There may be some cases where the old 19-year leases hold good. Suppose a new lease has just been negotiated before this Measure becomes law, and the Owner has to undertake to replace a cottage by building or by reconditioning. In that case he may have to wait until the full term of the lease before he can


get any direct benefit by way of increase in rent. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman does not suggest that the landlords are doing very well by way of rent at the present time? He must know that such a suggestion is preposterous. The local authorities in Scotland have been diligent and want to see proper housing accommodation provided either by building, re-conditioning or rebuilding, whether in the towns or in the country districts.

Mr. Quibell: Hear, hear.

Mr. McKie: I am glad to have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell), whose intervention in a Scottish debate has rejoiced us very much. It is an undisputed fact that many of those unfortunate persons—I am not ashamed to use the word "unfortunate"—who own the land of Scotland find themselves in very deplorable financial circumstances. The right hon. Member for South Ayrshire corroborated that statement on Second Reading. Under legislation since the end of the War landowners have found themselves faced with increasing difficulty through the duties laid upon them of undertaking the reconstruction and reconditioning of many houses to which nothing had been done for years, and which were consequently in a condition unfit for human habitation. I pointed out on Second Reading that this class of person would be dealt a severe blow by being called upon to provide new houses such as are envisaged in this Bill. That is why I pleaded with the Under-Secretary to see whether the suggestion of the Advisory Committee, upon whose report this Bill is founded, could not be acted upon, namely, to increase the subsidy to those unfortunate persons who really are not in a position to provide accommodation for those who dwell upon the land. Hon. Members have spoken of the un-desirability of the tied house in itself, and the right hon. Member for Sutherland and Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) said that it was an inevitable evil. So it is. I agree with him. I hope he will agree with me that there are many agricultural workers in Scotland who would rather regret if they were to be dumped in what may be regarded as new colonies, erected on the lines which the right hon. Member for West Stirling would like to see adopted. I hope hon. Members above the Gangway will not take their opposition to the

Measure into the Division Lobby. I am not sure that a great deal of building will be undertaken under these proposals; indeed, the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland suggested that there would not be very much building. I think local authorities and the bigger landowners in Scotland will prefer to proceed by way of reconditioning. If we are to have a Division, I shall go into the Lobby in support of the Secretary of State for Scotland.

8.27 p.m.

Mr. J. Brown: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words, "upon this day six months."
I am not in love with the Amendment for the rejection because there are many things in the Bill which we want to see carried out, but the question of the tied house is one which, as a miner, I resent deeply. I am opposed to the principle of the tied house, whether it is in a mining village or on a farm. We recognise that in some of the northern parts of Scotland it is almost impossible to do what we would like to do with regard to the tied house. We agree that there are cases where it would be almost impossible to do otherwise than have the worker near to his scene of operations. The hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) talks about colonies.

Mr. McKie: I used that expression for want of a better word. I meant just one or two cottages, which are not even villages.

Mr. Brown: In any case we are against the tied house system, and the only way in which we can show our resentment is by moving the rejection of a Bill which to some degree perpetuates the system. It has always been a wonder to me why the basic industry of this country, the one industry which we cannot do without, should be the worst paid industry in the country and should have so little respect paid to it. If we treated the farm workers as ordinary working men in ordinary trades and occupations we should not require any of the legislation we are passing now. This is the one industry which is indispensable in this or any other country, and it is the worst paid. We want the people on the land to be treated as ordinary citizens of the State and to be paid accordingly. The same thing applies to coal-


mining, which I should say is the next industry in importance in the country. The miners are treated practically in the same way. If you lose your job with the manager you lose your house in many cases. Here we have these two industries, the most important industries in the country, which are not looked after as they should be. I move the Amendment for the rejection grudgingly because I do not want the Bill to be lost, but we must enter our protest in some way and the only way we can do so is by moving that the Bill be read this day six months.

8.32 p.m.

Mr. Barr: I do not propose to detain the House very long. I had the honour of serving on the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Industrial Classes, both rural and urban, which reported in 1917. In that report you will find very strong arguments, very emphatically put, against giving public money to private individuals in the way it has been done, and in the way it is proposed to be done in this Bill, although I agree there are many safeguards. The tied house in Scotland is not of a very high standard; indeed it is of a very poor standard. One of the great difficulties has been that the landowner was supposed to provide the building and the tenant farmer was supposed to do the small repairs. The farm servant was diffident in approaching the farmer, and the farmer was equally diffident in approaching the landlord. Consequently the tied house in many cases fell into a very bad condition indeed and nothing was done to improve it. The farm servant has also become a nomad, a wanderer. He is driven from one farm to another under the system of the feuing markets and under the system of the tied house. He is constantly kept moving about, and his children suffer in their education and otherwise.
It is true that there are cases where, because of the remoteness of the farm or for other reasons, there must be tied houses, but what we are concerned about to-night is that the exception should not be made the rule and that the necessity which exists in a few cases should not be made much more general that it need be. In this Bill the Government are perpetuating the tied-house system, although there is an opportunity, save in the exceptional cases which I have mentioned, to bring it to an end. One of the great watch-

words of our time is security, and a great deal of legislation has gone through the House for the purpose of giving security of tenure, both in regard to the land and houses. In the Crofters Acts, security of tenure was written at the very forefront, and that security of tenure was given in the matter of housing as well as the crofts that were tilled. In 1915, there was a whole series of Acts, which we have been obliged recently to consider again, for housing control. Although it is true that the Government are decontrolling, or seeking to decontrol, a certain number of those houses, we are opposed to that form of decontrol, not only because it is likely to lead to an increase in rents, but to greater insecurity, to eviction—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Captain Bourne): The hon. Gentleman may not go into that question on the Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Barr: I am afraid that I have not made myself clear. I was not referring to that subject, save as an illustration of the value of giving security in housing. I will not pursue the matter further than to say that the present system, as far as tied housing is continued, gives insecurity in the matter of housing and does not allow the farm servant to come in full citizenship and full independence, simply because he has not security of tenure in housing. On those grounds, I support the Amendment for the rejection of the Bill.

8.38 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: I regret that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland strayed into the House, stayed a minute or two, and then strayed out again, because I wanted to inform him how bitterly disappointed many of my hon. Friends were by the speech which he made on this Bill. The Secretary of State knows very well the strong feeling which exists in many parts of the country on the subject of tied houses, and I regret that no indication has been given, either by the Under-Secretary or by the Minister, that an attempt will be made in the future to deal with this question from the point of view of the granting of the subsidy. It is unfortunate that none of the conditions with regard to tied houses that might well be applied to the giving of this subsidy are to be applied. The granting of the subsidy and tied houses could very


well be related, in the same way as conditions are imposed when subsidies are granted in other cases. When subsidies are given to the shipping industry or to other industries, we generally insist on certain conditions existing within those industries; for instance, in the shipping industry, we insist on a certain percentage of British labour on the ships.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) said that the Scottish local authorities do not seem to be particularly active and do not seem to have done enough in the past with regard to tied houses. That has been one of the troubles. For a number of years the local authorities have been dominated by the landlords and the farmers, and very little progress has been made. It is up to the Secretary of State for Scotland, if he intends to do away with this evil, to see to it that the local authorities toe the line. At the present time, the Scottish local authorities are very anxious to deal with this problem, and I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that he has received many requests from Scottish authorities for assistance in this matter. I would inform the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) that it is not a question of establishing colonies in Scotland, but of reestablishing the village life and the freedom of the villages, which is the right of the people of the farming community. It is regrettable that money should be expended without there being any conditions regarding the abolition of this evil. I think that hon. Members in all parts of the House will agree that it is not only a question of the tied house. The tied house means tied lives. The people who live in tied houses have to be careful; we know very well that tied houses lead to the repression—I do not think I am using too strong a word—of the political opinions of the people living in them, and that they are afraid to express themselves in the ballots that take place with regard to Scottish affairs.
I appeal to the Secretary of State, even at this late hour, to give us some assurance on this matter. There are many things in the Bill with which hon. Members on this side of the House are not entirely satisfied. The farming community is one of the most important sections of the people, and one of the most repressed sections, and the farm workers are living in the worst possible conditions. We hear

of the beautiful cottages in the Highlands of Scotland and the Midlands of England, but young farm workers have described to me the cottages in which they live. They have said, "Certainly we have roses round the door, but when you walk inside, you are apt to bump your head on the ceiling, and if you climb up the rickety stairs, you are apt to see the sky above, because the roof is broken." Such houses are a disgrace. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) said—and I agree to some extent—that there are certain areas where it would be very difficult to establish the farm workers in a village, because they must be near their work. But there are thousands of tied houses in areas where they are completely unnecessary. In those areas, the local authorities could build decent houses, with the aid of the subsidy, and give the farm workers the community services, the life and the freedom to which they are entitled.
The hon. Member for Galloway referred to the question of establishing colonies. In many of the great industrial towns industry grew just as farming is growing, and the workers in those industries had transport services provided for them. There would be no great difficulty, even in the countryside, in establishing some sort of transport service which would enable a farm servant to have his home two or three miles away from the farm. There are many people in London who live farther from their employment than many farm servants would have to live if all the tied houses were done away with and they were housed in villages two or three miles away. There are people in industrial Scotland and industrial England living 10 and 20 miles away from their work and travelling to and fro by tubes and various other transport services. I appeal to the Secretary of State, if he is to reply to this Debate, to hold out some hope that the Government are alive to this problem, and that steps will be taken in the future to see that the farming community, one of the most important sections of our population, the people from whom the industrial workers derive many of their benefits, get the social services and amenities which other workers have enjoyed for so many years.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. Watson: Hon. Members opposite are supposed to be the special friends of


agriculturists. They are not only interested in the farmers, but claim to be the special friends of the farm servants. It is not to be imagined that because we on this side are opposing the Third Reading of this Bill we are not interested in conditions in the countryside. We are, and always have been, although I must say that up to now we have got very little encouragement or support from those who live in the countryside. However, we are living in hope that by and by even the agricultural workers will recognise that in Labour candidates and Labour Members of Parliament they have good friends. We say that a farm servant has as much right to a good dwelling-house as any other worker. We do not look upon agricultural workers as among the lowest grades of workers. They are highly skilled workmen. If anyone imagines that agricultural work is not skilled work he can go and try it, and he will find that it is highly-skilled work indeed.
We are opposing the Third Reading of this Bill on certain specific grounds. One of them has been well discussed already, and that is the continuance of the tied-house system. We object to public money being handed over to private landowners to provide tied houses for their workers. The tied-house system has been a curse in Scottish agriculture, and in this Bill the Government perpetuate it. I hope that the Department of Health will take the advice which has been given from various quarters in the House and see that as little as possible of the subsidy for houses will go to private owners and as much as possible to local authorities. Those who will be dealing with the houses to be erected for farm workers will be the housing committees of the county councils, and they should see that as far as possible farm workers are congregated in little groups, where they can have some social life. With the transport which is available nowadays even in country districts there is less difficulty in the farm worker getting from one point to another if living some little distance from his work. We acknowledge that even under the best conditions there must be a number of houses—not many, two or three—for each farm within a short distance of the farm, and we agree to there being that limited number of tied houses,

but I hope that the Secretary of State will have as few of these privately-owned tied houses as possible, and as many as possible of the houses for the agricultural population under the control of public bodies.
There is another reason for our opposition to the Measure. The Under-Secretary told us to-night that bath-rooms will be provided in the new houses for agricultural workers, but we have had no indication of what is to be done about providing a proper drainage system and an adequate water supply. The Government have been putting the cart before the horse. Instead of first installing the drainage and water supply they are providing the bath-room first and leaving over the provision of water and drainage. There is another point in the Under-Secretary's speech which I viewed in a different light, and that was his reference to the power which is given to large burghs which have agricultural land within their boundaries to provide houses for agricultural workers.
We welcome that part of the Measure, because within some of our large burghs there is a considerable area of agricultural land, in some cases there are many farms and many of the houses on those farms are in a very bad state. Rehousing is required even within an area of that nature, and I am pleased that the large burghs are to be in a position to house their agricultural population. The Under-Secretary took special pains to underline the fact that in the cities and the large burghs provision could be made only for those who were actively engaged in agriculture. In the county areas there is not that limited restriction, for they are entitled to provide not only for those who are engaged on the farms but for those who can claim to have some connection with agriculture. Even those engaged in subsidiary trades may claim a house in the county districts under this Measure, but inside the cities and large burghs only those actively engaged in agriculture can occupy a new house under the terms of this Bill. I welcome that provision because I was one of those who raised this matter at the beginning. In my constituency, although it consists of a group of burghs, there is one burgh with a large tract of arable land, and in that burgh there is need for new houses for the agricultural workers.
I have a great deal of sympathy with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. J. Brown). It is regrettable that we have to oppose this Measure, but we do it in order to register our protest against public money being handed over to private individuals to provide houses that are not owned or controlled in any way by the local authorities. At the same time, it must not be thought that this party does not want to see the agricultural population housed

under better conditions. They are as much entitled to a decent standard of housing as any other section of the community, and we shall do everything we can to see that the agricultural population of Scotland is properly housed.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 135; Noes, 78.

Division No. 151.]
AYES.
[8.59 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Hambro, A. V.
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Hannah, I. C.
Radford, E. A.


Allen. Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Ramsbotham, H.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Harbord, A.
Ramsden, Sir E.


Aske, Sir R. W.
Harris, Sir P. A.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)


Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.
Rayner, Major R. H.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Higgs, W. F.
Reid, J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Birchall, Sir J. D.
Hopkinson, A.
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)


Brass, Sir W.
Hunter, T.
Ropner, Colonel L.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Hutchinson, G. C.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Bull, B. B.
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gfn)
Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.


Burgin, Rt. Hon. E. L.
Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.


Carver, Major W. H.
Jones, L. (Swansea W.)
Salt, E. W.


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)
Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)
Seely, Sir H. M.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Kimball, L.
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)


Clarke, Colonel R. S. (E. Grinstead)
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Clydesdale, Marquess of
Lees-Jones, J.
Shute, Colonel Sir J. J.


Cook, Sir T. R. A. M. (Norfolk N.)
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)


Crooke, Sir J. S.
Liddall, W. S.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.
Lipson, D. L.
Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)


Cross, R. H.
Llawellin, Colonel J. J.
Southby, Commander Sir A. R. J.


Crowder, J. F. E.
Loftus, P. C.
Spears, Brigadier-General E L.


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)
Spens, W. P.


Denville, Alfred
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)


Dodd, J. S.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)
Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
McKie, J. H.
Tasker, Sir R. I.


Dugdale, Captain T. L.
Maclay, Hon. J. P.
Tate, Mavis C.


Eastwood, J. F.
Macquisten, F. A.
Wakefield, W. W.


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan


Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Ellis, Sir G.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)


Elliston, Capt. G. S.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Emery, J. F.
Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)
Watt, Major G. S. Harvie


Erskine-Hill, A. G.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Fildes, Sir H.
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Wells, S. R.


Findlay, Sir E.
Munro, P.
Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)


Foot, D. M.
Nall, Sir J.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Furness, S. N.
Nicholson, G. (Farnham)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Fyfe, D. P. M.
Nicolson, Hon. H. G.
Wise, A. R.


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Owen, Major G.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Gower, Sir R. V.
Peters, Dr. S. J.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Petherick, M.



Grimston, R. V.
Pilkington, R.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.
Plugge, Capt. L. F.
Lieut.-Colonel Kerr and




Major Herbert.




NOES.


Ammon, C. G.
Daggar, G.
Hills, A. (Pontefract)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Hopkin, D.


Barnes, A. J.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Jagger, J.


Barr, J.
Dobbie, W.
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)


Batay, J.
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
John, W.


Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.
Ede, J. C.
Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.


Benson, G.
Edwards, Sir G. (Bedwellty)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)


Bromfield, W.
Gallacher, W.
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.


Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)
Gardner, B. W.
Lawson, J. J.


Buchanan, G.
Gibson, R. (Greenock)
Leach, W.


Burke, W. A.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Lee, F.


Cassells, T.
Grenfell, D. R.
Leslie, J. R.


Charleton, H. C.
Hardie, Agnes
Logan, D. G.


Chater, D.
Hayday, A.
McEntee, V. La T.


Cluse, W. S.
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Maclean, N.


Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Marshall, F.




Maxton, J.
Quibell, D. J. K.
Tinker, J. J.


Messer, F.
Ridley, G.
Tomlinson, G.


Milner, Major J.
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Viant, S. P.


Montague, F.
Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey)
Watson, W. McL.


Muff, G.
Sexton, T. M.
Westwood, J.


Paling, W.
Silverman, S. S.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Parker, J.
Simpson, F. B.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Parkinson, J. A.
Smith, E. (Stoke)
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Pethick Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.
Stephen, C.



Prien, M. P.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Pritt, D. N.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Mr. Mathers and Mr. Adamson.


Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

Orders of the Day — CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

9.6 p.m.

The Solicitor-General for Scotland (Mr. James Reid): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The purpose of the Measure is to make a number of small Amendments to the criminal law of Scotland. We have two sorts of criminal procedure, a solemn procedure applicable to the more serious crimes, which come before a jury, and the summary procedure, under which cases are tried without a jury, either before a sheriff, burgh magistrates or justices of the peace. In the vast number of cases tried by the summary procedure the penalty is a fine, frequently with the alternative of imprisonment, although a number of cases are awarded imprisonment without the alternatice. Those two procedures are based upon Statutes which have stood for a considerable period. The summary procedure is based upon a Statute passed in 1908. Speaking generally, I may say that these Statutes have worked extremely well and that there is no suggestion in the Bill of altering the main lines of either kind of procedure, but it is inevitable, in the course of time, that certain Amendments become necessary, however good a system may be. They become necessary in this case for two reasons, one, the changing circumstances of modern life requiring some different procedure to deal with them, or because of certain points which were overlooked when the Acts were passed and have subsequently come out, showing that Amendment was required.
After those few preliminary remarks I would pass to consider very shortly the Clauses of the Bill. I am afraid that some of them are not altogether self-explanatory, at least to hon. Members who are not lawyers, and I will try to give an

indication of the purpose and the effect of each Clause. The first four Clauses deal with one matter, the method by which fines are to be recovered. There are three methods by which it has been sought and is sought to avoid that people who have been fined should be sent to prison in default of payment. First of all, and this is a method of long standing, it is the practice in most cases where time is asked for to allow time for payment. I shall explain in a moment that Amendment is being made there to extend that practice somewhat beyond its present ambit. Secondly, there is the question of payment of fines by instalments. That has been the law in England for a considerable time, but there is no statutory warrant for the practice in Scotland. In many areas it has been done unofficially by the co-operation of the police, and I think that where it has been done it has worked well. It is highly desirable that the matter should be put on a regular footing, and that is one of the purposes of the Bill.
Thirdly, there is the possibility of review of the sentence before a man is put in prison. There is already statutory provision for that in the Act of 1908. Clause 1 deals with the matter of payment by instalments and gives a general power in all cases to allow payment by instalments, either at the time when the fine is imposed or at any later time, if the accused comes to the court and asks for that indulgence. There are certain consequential provisions into which I need not enter. We cannot estimate what effect these Clauses will have in lessening the number of those who are sentenced, but we expect that the effect will be not inconsiderable.

Mr. Buchanan: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman say what he means by reviewing the sentence?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: There is provision, I think it is in Section 54 of the Act of 1908, whereby before a man is sent to prison he is entitled to have his case reconsidered by


the court, if the court see fit, and the court are entitled to remit his sentence or any part of it. I am told that is done not infrequently. The power seems sufficiently widespread for it not to be in need of extension. Passing to Clause 2 there has been, and of course there still is in motoring offences, a great development of persons who reside in one sheriffdom being fined in another. It is highly convenient that after the fine is imposed in those circumstances the case should be transferred to the court near the man's home, so that, if he desires to come up and ask for an indulgence, time for paying or otherwise, he can go to the nearest court and not to the court near where the offence was committed. That position is being regularised by Clause 2.

Mr. Westwood: I presume that that does not mean that the second court will have rights of revision over a sentence imposed in the first court?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: Yes, it does, and the hon. Gentleman will see that for that reason there is a provision that where a sentence has been imposed by one sheriff the transfer must be to another sheriff, so that burgh magistrates will not have to review a sheriff's decision. One sheriff is entitled to review the decision of another. This change will put a good deal of extra work upon officials, but we think that it is worth while incurring the additional working expense in order to bring about the object which these four Clauses are aimed to achieve.
Clause 3 extends the existing principle of supervision. At present the courts have power to put juveniles under supervision, and in England the power of supervision has been extended to adults. We think it proper that the courts in Scotland also should be given the power, if they see fit, to put adults under supervision in cases where they require time to pay their fines, in order that the intervening time may not be wasted. Clause 4 deals with the matter of allowing time to pay. At present the law is that, in the absence of special causes, anybody who resides at a fixed abode within the sheriffdom in which he is tried is entitled to time to pay, but if he resides outside the sheriffdom he is not entitled to time, although in most sheriffdoms he gets it in most cases. We think it right, look-

ing again to the change of modern habits and the ease of communication, that he should have the same facilities if his abode is outside the sheriffdom as he has at present if it is inside. The words are "fixed abode," and I take it that it is not necessary that he should be actually on the valuation roll as a tenant.

Mr. Cassells: Is it not a fact that that is the actual test applied by sheriffs?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: It is very much easier to check whether the man's fixed abode is where he says it is if you find an entry in a public document, but I do not think there is any obstacle to the man establishing otherwise to the satisfaction of the sheriff that in fact he has a fixed abode in a certain place.
The other Clauses of the Bill deal with miscellaneous matters. Clause 5 is in order to prevent unnecessary attendance at court. It has always been a fixed principle of Scottish law that nothing can be done in a criminal court in the absence of the accused. In the case of the solemn procedure that is a very valuable safeguard, but in the case of summary procedure it entails unnecessary attendance, because there is no reason why the accused should attend the court if his solicitor is there to plead "Not guilty" on his behalf or to make some legal submission, and if the trial is not to be fixed until a subsequent date. The purpose of the Clause is to avoid the attendance of the accused at the preliminary statement of the case. In many cases this practice operates to-day, but we think it right somewhat to extend and to regularise it.
Clause 6 is not, I am afraid, very intelligible on the face of it, but it arises in this way: If you have a motor accident, there may well arise out of that accident two charges, the one of a serious offence which must be tried before a jury, and the other a trifling offence that would not be tried before a jury. Under our old law it would not be possible to try these charges together as alternatives, but in 1934 power was taken to try as alternative charges a serious and a less serious charge both arising under the Statute. But a number of the less serious charges which may be made against motorists do not arise directly under the Statute, but under regulations made by the Minister in pursuance of statutory powers. There


has been some doubt whether the powers given in 1934 apply to the latter class of cases, and it is to remove that doubt and to enable all cases of alternative charges under motor legislation to be taken before the same court that this Clause is brought in.
Clause 7 deals with a point which I think one must frankly say was overlooked in the course of drafting certain recent Acts. It deals with Borstal. The original intention was that Borstal should be open for boys over 16 years of age, but the age limit was defined with reference to the question of offences for which imprisonment could be awarded. The House will be aware that recent legislation has prevented the imprisonment of boys under the age of 17, and it was not noticed that the effect of that was that, except in a limited class of cases, boys between the ages of 16 and 17 could not be sent to Borstal. We think it right that the original age of 16 should be retained for Borstal, and, with that in view, this Clause has been introduced. Clause 8 deals with a very minor matter. It relates to procurators fiscal, who are, as hon. Members will be aware, officials who act under the direction of my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate. As a general rule they have depute fiscals, and they are entitled to direct whether they or their depute shall take cases. There is, however, a technical difficulty with regard to fatal accidents inquiries, which we are removing by this Clause.
Clause 9 is for the purpose of clearing up a situation created by a recent decision in Edinburgh. As a general rule it is in the power of the Lord Advocate to direct that a person accused of almost any offence except murder shall be tried either by the High Court or by the sheriff with a jury. Cases are directed to be taken before a sheriff and jury where it is obvious that from the circumstances of the case a heavy penalty could not be imposed, but there are certain statutes which are so worded as to make it essential that the case should be taken to the High Court, however trivial the circumstances may be, and recently there have been a number of cases, where obviously the imprisonment to be awarded would not be more than, say, a month, which have had to be taken to the High Court, with all the trouble thereby involved. We think it right to

put those cases on the same basis as common' law cases, whereby it is in the discretion of the Lord Advocate to decide before which Court the accused shall be taken.
Clause 10 makes another alteration in our somewhat rigid old procedure. Under the old procedure, not only is it necessary for an accused person to be present, but the accused cannot, even though he wishes, make any admissions which are damaging to himself. Of course, he may make admissions in cross-examination, but, if he does not choose to go into the witness-box, no admissions can be made on his behalf. We think that that is somewhat of a disadvantage to the accused, because it happens not infrequently that, where a mass of documents has to be proved, or where the facts are all admitted and the sole question is whether there was any criminal intent, a great deal of time is taken up in proving things which are not in the least necessary. In 1933 it was enacted that an accused person, acting on legal advice, was entitled to admit documents, but was not entitled to admit facts. We think that that is an unnecessary restriction, and that the same power to make admissions should be given with regard to facts as exists with regard to documents. No admission is taken from the accused unless he is legally represented.

Mr. Foot: Supposing an admission had ben made in the way contemplated by this Clause, would it be open to the defence at a later stage of the proceedings to withdraw it and require strict proof of the fact or document if it was thought necessary?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I should hardly think so. I think it would be somewhat difficult to withdraw it, but I will certainly consider whether that is the true interpretation of the Clause, [Interruption.] Undoubtedly, if the accused offers a plea of guilty before he is called upon to plead formally, he may withdraw that at any time. Clause 11 deals with a somewhat curious matter. There are a number of recent enactments, from the Deceased Wife's Sister Act and downwards, which narrow the prohibited degrees of marriage. The purpose of this Clause is to provide that, where there are two people to whom the prohibited degrees would not in any circumstances


attach, there can be no crime of incest involved as between them.
That is at least a sketch of the provisions of the Clauses of the Bill. They are miscellaneous. They have been adopted to deal with some specific omissions and things that appear to require amendment, and I commend them all to the House as being desirable amendments of the law of Scotland.

9.29 p.m.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: With regard to the first part of the Bill, which I imagine is the most important, and which makes the most significant changes in the law, I should like to know how far the law as it will be if the Bill becomes an Act will be assimilated to the English practice. As I understand it, the English practice to-day is that a man is allowed to pay by instalments and if, after paying certain instalments, he refuses or is unable to complete them, he comes before the court again and, unless the court has grounds for remitting the remainder of the fine, he is sent to prison and it remains with the magistrate to allot the particular term of imprisonment. It is true that the magistrate usually apportions it somewhat on the lines as directed here. What I understand in the Bill is that the term must be as near as possible in the proportion to the unpaid part of the fine. Does this conform in that respect precisely to the present English practice, or does it take out of the hands of the court the precise decision as to the amount of imprisonment to be inflicted?
I should further like to know whether in the first four Clauses the change that is being made is to the advantage of the defendant, or whether in any particular his position may be worsened by these proposals. My experience of summary courts is not quite so favourable as that of the hon. and learned Gentleman. I am not saying anything against those who administer justice in them, but in view of the fact that the judge and the jury are the same person, that the time for dealing with the case is often exceedingly short, that the case is one of a great number which come up consecutively, and that, with human limitations, the person dispensing justice is inclined to imagine (n + 1) th case is precisely on all fours with the nth case which has just preceded it, it happens not infrequently that full justice is not done. Therefore, I am not

at all ready to give the general eulogy to summary jurisdiction that we have heard from the Government spokesman. At the same time, we all recognise that summary jurisdiction has come to stay, but it must be our object to alleviate some of the difficulties and to give the defendant every chance when he comes before a court of summary jurisdiction. On the assumption that these provisions in the Bill are all in that direction, I certainly would not desire to prevent their passage, but I should like an assurance that they are to that effect, and that in all respects the person is really getting a better chance after these provisions are carried than before.
I am not quite clear as to the precise effect of Clause 7. I quite understand that the intention is to enable the child to be sent to a Borstal institution if he or she has attained the age of 16, but I am not quite clear what is the state of the law at present. Can they be sent to any other institution, or must they be put on probation, or what precisely is the position? Because although Borstal institutions have a great deal to recommend them, I think that they are perhaps not quite as perfect as some people suppose. If it be true that a child at present is not sent to an institution at all, but given careful guidance under probation, I am not necessarily favourable to the alteration of the law which is being made; but if that be not the case, I should like to know what the position is. On Clause 10, there is only one comment I have to make. I would like to ask, can any reference be made by the prosecution, if this provision is carried into the law, on the refusal of the defendant to make an admission? It is not stated in this Clause that that could not be done and I should like the Solicitor-General for Scotland to satisfy himself and the House that no such statement could be made. I should like him, before we pass this Measure, to be able to satisfy us on that.

9.37 p.m.

Mr. Erskine Hill: I do not propose to keep the House for long, but I want to say that this is a most valuable addition to the law of Scotland. I propose to direct myself, first, to those clauses which deal with High Court procedure. I am of opinion that by far the most valuable of those is Clause 10. Anyone who has had experience of Scottish High Court proce-


dure will realise the great disadvantage of the Crown having to prove every small item. It is a disadvantage not only from the point of view of the court, but from that of the accused, because very often in a High Court case, particularly a murder case, you have 200 or 300 articles of all sorts which all have to be proved. The result is delay, which causes expense to the accused and the extra anxieties of another day's trial and, in murder cases, as far as the jury are concerned, that means, of course, that they are locked up another day, away from their families, and with all the inconveniences of enforced absence from home.
The rules which necessitated this provision of the Scottish law were founded on real justice in the old days, when there were all sorts of possibilities of the evidence being tampered with. But nowadays that is not so. In a murder case, you may have some fragment of cloth or some hair having to be sent from Aberdeen, where the murder was committed, to the Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in Edinburgh University. The hair or fragment of cloth is handed to a policeman, who takes it to the Professor of Medical Jurisprudence. All that has to be proved in court, from the moment the Procurator-Fiscal at Aberdeen puts into the hands of the policeman the hair or fragment of cloth until it is eventually handed back to him every step is sworn to by witnesses. I have had several experiences of being besought by the defence to let go this necessity of proving those absolutely unnecessary details, and I have had to reply that it is my duty to go on and prove everything, because it is the law of Scotland. This is a very important Clause, and it will make for the expedition of justice, the saving of expense for the accused and the saving of a great deal of unnecessary time in the trial of important causes.
With regard to Clause 9, a great many offences, particularly coinage offences, are tried before the High Court, and the sentence is one of one or two months. It means a great loss of time to the High Court. As regards payment of fines, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) asked whether the new Clauses represented an advance on the present law. I think they do indeed. But I think they may be

open to the criticism that the English Bill goes further, and there may be some anxiety expressed that this Bill should go further, too. While I am largely in sympathy with that view, I think the system in Scotland, where the sheriffs are already overburdened, makes it difficult to concede that too much more should be put upon them. The sheriffs, who have so much to do already, ought not to be still more overburdened.

Mr. Buchanan: Is that the only reason?

Mr. Erskine Hill: I am not giving the only reason; I am expressing a difficulty.

Mr. Buchanan: Therefore, the people in Scotland should suffer more—all because there are not enough sheriffs.

Mr. Erskine Hill: The hon. Member has put much more into my words than I said. If it were in order, I would suggest that there should be more sheriffs appointed perhaps in Scotland. All I say is that I express what is a very real difficulty at the present moment, that the sheriffs should not be still more overburdened. I have expressed my sympathy for a wide discretion, and I repeat that as generous a view as possible should be taken on the payment of fines. This Bill deserves the commendation of the House.

9.43 p.m.

Mr. Buchanan: I rise to say a word or two about this Bill, because, for some considerable time, I have plied the Secretary of State for Scotland with questions as to when he would introduce a Bill similar to that introduced in 1935 for England. This Bill can be criticised, not for what it contains but for a great deal of what is left out. Now we are dealing with the law of criminal procedure, the Scottish Office and the Law Officers ought to have undertaken a much wider measure of reform. I am not going to say that my view will be shared in all parts of the House, but I think that in certain parts of criminal procedure some reform is overdue, particularly in regard to very petty offences. In Scotland I do not think anybody could complain about the trial of the most serious crimes of all. In the case of a crime like murder, the trial is fair, impartial and a credit to all concerned; but in the case of petty crimes, like drunkenness on a Saturday night or a brawl between two or three people in the street, when the


case comes before the magistrate I am not sure that the procedure is anything like so creditable.
When a person is charged with murder the court is a civilian court. Everybody is a civilian, including the judge and the prosecutor. But when a man is charged with an offence like getting drunk on a Saturday night, it is a different sort of court. He is tried for this terrible offence. He goes into a Glasgow police court, where the evidence is almost entirely police evidence. It is bound to be so, as a civilian does not really care to give evidence. The prosecutor is the police superintendent, dressed in police uniform, with his Sam Browne belt. When you go into court it is almost like going into the atmosphere of a court-martial instead of that of a civil court. Why should uniform be worn in a civil court? No uniform should be worn in such a court. The police are responsible for the evidence, and the chief of police is the prosecutor. The time has come when, in cases where the police in the main are giving the evidence, the chief of police should not be the prosecutor.
I turn from that to the main reform in the Bill, which deals with the payment of fines by instalments. I listened with a great deal of attention to what was said by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine Hill). He and the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Cassells) have had much more experience in the courts than I have. But I am not without experience, although I have never been before the sheriff for an offence. What is the difference between the English Act and the Scottish Bill? The English Measure also allows payment of fines by instalments, but it goes a great deal further. If non-payment of a fine is due to reasons over which a defendant has no control, say, because of unemployment or the illness of his wife, or because his business has "gone smash," the court need not persist in the fine.
It is well that we should be clear about the present procedure. I speak about Glasgow, which I know well. The procurators fiscal are much more easy of approach in order to get a fine delayed than is the case in magistrates' courts. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) was a little confused in regard to summary courts in England and summary

courts in Scotland. In the summary courts in Scotland cases are tried by the sheriff and not by lay magistrates. You can go to the procurator fiscal or to one of his able assistants and say that, So-and-So, who has been fined £5, and has been given three months in which to pay, cannot pay the fine by the end of that time, but that he might be able to do so if a further three months were granted. He asks for reasons and will say whether they are good, bad or indifferent. It may be said that the defendant had been out of work and had only started again a week or so ago, and the assistant might say that that was a good reason and that he would recommend the sheriff to extend the period of the fine. The man does not necessarily appear before the sheriff. But if you go to a magistrates' court the magistrates' assistant usually says that he must have the man before him before the time for payment could be extended. Perhaps the poor chap might be at work, and it would be a great hardship upon him if he had to come.
When this Bill is passed, we shall have to watch that certain magistrates—and I speak particularly with regard to some of the lay magistrates—do not make it an excuse for sending men to prison. I am rather afraid that some may say that a defendant is outside their jurisdiction or district and that they cannot deal with the fine in the way they used to do, and that, therefore, they must make sure of it by sending the man to prison. There ought to be payment of fines by instalments. What happens in Glasgow is that sometimes a man goes to prison in default of paying a fine of £1, and perhaps after a few days some one turns up and hands over 10s. and the man is let out after about three days instead of having to serve for six days, although I understand that this sort of thing has not the legality of law. Payment of fines by instalments under the English Measure, I believe, was introduced partly to benefit the poorer section of the community. A fine of £5 imposed upon me would be nothing like as heavy upon me as a fine of 10s. would be upon, say, an unemployed constituent of mine. I think that I could pay the £5 very easily. I plead with the Solicitor-General for Scotland that, with regard to the payment of fines, there ought to be provision for some amendment so that the law in Scotland is not harsher than the law in England.
I want to come for a moment or two to a Clause about which I am slightly suspicious, and that is the Clause for the extension of supervision. We have had the practice of the supervision of boys in Scotland, and I cannot say that I have always thought it a great success. It all depends very much on how these matters are worked. I had a case only this week of a boy breaking into a place in a residential quarter near Glasgow. Of course, he should not have done it, and I suppose that at his age the difference between us was that I did a thing and was not caught, and he was caught. The boy stays at Griffnock, in my division, about seven miles away from where he works, but the police called at his place of employment, and he was sacked. It does not do any good to anyone to see a boy unemployed as well as punished. What right have the police or the authorities to do such a thing? I would like to have seen power in the Bill to the effect that wherever the police have reasonable knowledge of a defendant's address, they should not call at the place where he is employed.
We have already had supervision by the probation officer, and a great deal turns on who the officer is and what type of mind he has. If he is a decent, kindly man, there is not much in it. I think it might in some cases be argued that it helps, but in other cases it can be terribly hard on a defendant. I am thinking about the adult person who is under supervision. In a district like mine, where there are tenement dwellings, what happens? In Glasgow, with its packed community and where everybody knows everybody else's business, you cannot hide these things. You are living on the top of one another, and up comes this officer to supervise a man who has been fined for an offence away, say, in Dundee. Nobody knows anything about it, and a good job too. The man is put under supervision, and up comes the officer. Nearly everybody in the district knows he is the supervisor, and he knocks at the door to see how the man is behaving. It means that you advertise throughout the district that the man is a criminal. People do not know that it was up in Dundee, following the Rangers or the Celtics, and that it was something which, if they knew about it, would make them think him a hero rather than a criminal for having done it. They only see the

man who looks after the bad people coming to the door, and this probation business is open to terrible abuse.
I have seen it regarding boys. I have not thought it helped to see the probation officer in Glasgow marching up to a house to see how a boy was getting on, and everybody knew what he was there for. I have seen it happen that poor people have shifted out of the district, because the court has let a boy out on probation on condition that his parents go away to another surrounding. As a result they shift, and then the probation officer comes to visit the boy, and everyone in the new place at once knows that young Johnny is a criminal. If that sort of thing is to be extended, I do not think it is altogether a good thing, and I am not sure that in the main this supervision does all that it ought to do. To me, supervision was always meant to apply to cases that were really criminal, but where a fine is imposed to-day, people do not look upon it as a criminal offence requiring supervision. Why, for instance, should a man who has overloaded his lorry and been fined £2 payable by instalments, be supervised? Is it to be a case of one law for one set of people and another law for another set?
There is another matter, namely, the question of High Court indictments, on which I do not want to be dogmatic, but I was not quite so convinced as was the hon. and learned Gentleman on this question. I was not impressed by his explanation, and while I am not prepared to say that I will oppose this in Committee, at least I shall be somewhat suspicious until I get stronger reasons given to me than I have heard so far.
On the main part of the Bill, I do not propose to divide against it, and I only hope the Solicitor-General will meet us in Committee with an open mind. Many of the things that I have spoken about cannot be tackled in this Bill because they may be outside its scope, but I hope the Solicitor-General and also the Secretary of State for Scotland will pay some regard to these magistrates' courts in Glasgow, which need some inquiry. Crime is decreasing in our city. The figures recently published show a rapid decrease in crime, and that is due to many factors. We discussed one of the factors earlier to-day, namely, the question of housing. If the right hon. Gentleman can solve that prob-


lem of housing our community, he will do more than all the precious measures for fining or gaoling or birching will ever do to solve the problem of crime. Let him split up the slums. That is the way to attack crime, and for my part I say to him that he should look at this Bill in Committee with an open mind, and remember that a great mass of these cases of people who cannot pay fines are cases of poor folk who have not had the advantages of education, of knowledge, and of the brighter things of life. Do not let us make punishment our object, but let us have the humane object of doing all that we can to keep men outside prison, because, with all my experience of meeting criminals, I must say that I have rarely seen prison make a bad man good, and I have often thought it made a bad man worse.

10.3 p.m.

Mr. Maxwell Fyfe: It is with great diffidence that I venture to intrude into a system of law in which I am not trained, but there are points which I consider of very general importance to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. I should like first to follow the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), in what he said regarding prosecutions by police superintendents in uniform and the additional power which prosecuting in that way gives, not only in putting forward their own case, but in making it difficult for a defendant who is unrepresented to put forward his case. I would suggest to the hon. Member for his consideration a halfway house which has proved not unacceptable in the southern part of this island, and that is where you are dealing with the large class of trivial offences where it is not desired to go to the expense of employing solicitors. In such cases it has been found that police officers, trained as a staff of prosecutors, who appear in plain clothes and deal with prosecutions only for that period of their duty, get their idea of presenting them fairly and justly, and this tends to mitigate the undoubted evil which the hon. Member has put forward. I would suggest that the consideration of that plan might form a halfway house between the two points of view with which the hon. Member has dealt. I support entirely his plea for the abatement of fines where it is proved that persons cannot pay the fines through unemployment or any cause of that sort. Everyone who has to im-

pose penalties makes a real distinction between the case which requires imprisonment and the case which requires a fine. Once it has been decided that a case falls within the category of those which are deserving of fines only, it is wrong that that case should go back into the category of cases deserving imprisonment, merely because of lack of means on the part of the defendant. I am sure the Solicitor-General for Scotland will give full weight to that point.
There is an additional point which I, again with diffidence, would put before the House. One finds that in big districts there is a practical difficulty in the way of a defendant who has been fined coming to the court-house to pay the fine during the hours when the office for that purpose is open. An effort has been made in certain districts in England to arrange that a defendant should be allowed to pay the fine at the local police station. There is often a real difficulty in the way of a man making a journey of several miles by train or bus to pay a fine. It might be possible to consider some provision of that kind in connection with this Bill, or even to make a rule of practice by which such a system could be introduced.
On the question of strict proof, which has been dealt with by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine Hill) I confess that this provision has been disquieting to those of us who have had to deal with these problems in other places. When one is examining evidence before a prosecution is launched, one is at present bound to examine that evidence closely and scrutinise every link in the chain in order to see whether it will stand the pull of examination in open court. I may be old-fashioned in this matter, but I think it an excellent thing that prosecutions should be forced to stand that procedure. It prevents anything like slovenliness in the presentation of a prosecution. I attach the greatest weight to any point raised by my hon. and learned Friend, and I have myself had experience of cases in which one has had to spend perhaps two days, calling evidence of facts which were admitted, thereby occasioning expense to the defendants. But I submit that that happens only in a very small proportion of cases. In most cases the other consideration of the prosecution being compelled to present a case


which is absolutely watertight and does not fail in any small particular, is one of the greatest importance in the administration of criminal justice.
I can see an additional difficulty to that raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence). He raised the question of comment by the prosecution being barred. But can you stop that? Once this becomes law and becomes generally known, is it not going to be a case of suggesting, "Well, members of the jury, we have to go into all these matters. It is necessary to do so"—the implication being that, if the defendant were only reasonable, it would not be necessary to do so. The result is prejudice against the defendant. I am sure my hon. and learned Friends the Solicitor-General for Scotland and the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh would be the last to wish to prejudice a defendant, but if you are driven to place alternatives before the defendant, the adoption of one of which is bound to cause prejudice against him, then I submit you are coming to a position which is extremely undesirable in dealing with criminal cases. I repeat my apology for intruding in the affairs of Scotland, but, as hon. Members know, I have an interest by blood in Scotland and I am interested in the administration of justice. I hope the Solicitor-General for Scotland will give consideration to these points.

10.11 p.m.

Mr. Cassells: While generally agreeing with what has been said as to the effect of this Bill, I wish to pass a comment on the speech of the hon. and learned Member who has just resumed his seat, particularly in regard to Clause 10, Sub-sections (1) and (2). As I understand the purport of that Clause, it places a discretion on the accused or the person representing the accused, as to the admission of certain facts or documents. From personal experience, I am satisfied that the profession in Scotland will welcome this innovation. Last year I had a case in the sheriff court in Stirling. It was an indictment for embezzlement and it lasted six days. The whole of the first two days were occupied by proof of matters which were never at any time in dispute. I, personally, welcome this provision as far as assisting procedure is concerned.
One is bound to pay due regard to the point made by the last speaker from this point of view. As the law now stands, full opportunity is not given to the accused person in the sense of advising him to the full extent of the prosecution's case. On two occasions I have raised this question with the Lord Advocate. I have suggested that in summary procedure in Scotland, the accused person should be fully advised as to the witnesses whom the prosecution intend to adduce. So far nothing useful has eventuated. I assume that this Bill intends to give benefits to accused persons and if so one of the elements which it ought to contain, is the right to afford the accused full inside information about the case which he has to meet. The Solicitor-General for Scotland referred to the fact that this Bill applies not only to summary procedure, but also to solemn procedure. When one is dealing with a charge on indictment, the accused person is advised in the indictment as to the names and addresses of the witnesses who are to be adduced. I suggest with confidence and respect to the Solicitor-General that if that should apply to a case where solemn procedure follows, there is no reason why a similar concession should not be afforded to the accused on summary complaint.
The right hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) raised the question whether it would be competent for the prosecution to refer to the fact that an accused person had not made certain admissions, and the junior Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) raised the point whether it would be competent for an accused person, after having made admissions, to withdraw them. With the law of Scotland as it stands—I do not know one single thing about the law of England in this connection—I am satisfied that if the prosecution made a single suggestion to the jury that the accused had an opportunity to make admissions and did not do so, that fact would be sufficient of itself to quash the conviction. As the law of Scotland presently stands, if an accused person does not avail himself of the opportunity to go into the witness-box and speak on his own behalf, and that happens repeatedly, it is no part of the duty of the prosecution to lay stress upon that fact. There have been cases in Scotland where the prosecutor has referred to that fact, and on appeal the


appeal has been sustained. Therefore, so far as that point is concerned it has a complete answer.
I should like to refer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). In Sub-section I (1) there is afforded for the first time to convicted persons in Scotland the right to pay fines by instalment, but we find from the statement made by the hon. Member for Gorbals that the position in England is infinitely better than the position in Scotland. On the point raised by the right hon. Member for East Edinburgh there is quite clearly in this Sub-section no discretionary power afforded to the magistrate or the sheriff in the first instance. The Sub-section is quite specific. It says:
Where a court of summary jurisdiction imposes a fine on a person convicted of an offence, the court may, either at the same or at any subsequent time, order payment of the fine by instalments of such amounts, and at such times, as it may think fit, and where any instalment is not paid by the time so ordered, the accused shall
it is compulsory
be liable to imprisonment for such period as bears to the period appropriate to the total amount of the fine the same proportion, as nearly as may be," etc.
Why should it be that in Scotland the position should in any respect be different from that which applies in England, and particularly so from the further point raised by the hon. Member for Gorbals when he referred, quite properly, to Clause 3 (1). We must take these two Sub-sections together. Clause 3 (1) says:
Where a court of summary jurisdiction imposes a fine on a person convicted of an offence, and allows time for payment, the court may, either at the time when the fine is imposed or at any subsequent time, order the accused to be placed under such supervision as the court may from time to time appoint.
Therefore, in Scotland, instead of placing the accused in a more comfortable position, we are going to put him in a more difficult position. Not only is the presiding judge to be entitled to impose a monetary penalty, but he is to be entitled to apply a period of supervision. In these circumstances it is a most proper demand we make that an accused person in Scotland shall be treated in the same way as he is in England, and I hope that good will result from the demand we put forward.
I want to ask one or two questions with regard to the effect of Clause 3, Sub-section (1), dealing with the period of supervision. I view this Clause with the gravest suspicion. It means that months after a fine has been imposed it shall be within the discretion of the magistrate or sheriff to order that the accused person shall again be brought within the discretion of the court; and charged with what? There is no charge in this Clause. I assume that what is intended is that an accused person who has not been behaving as well as he might but not sufficiently badly to justify a specific complaint being made against him in a court of law, is to be compulsorily brought back again before the sheriff. Who is to supervise? What is to be the period of time within which an accused person may be brought back? What is the supervision to be? Is an accused person to be called upon to find caution? Is he to be called upon to sign a bond? If he fails to act up to the terms of the supervision order is it to be held as being contempt of court and is he to be committed to prison? These are points on which the House is entitled to specific information.
As a member of the profession I warmly welcome Clause 5, Sub-sections (1) and (2). We have repeatedly found in Scotland an accused person, charged with quite a trivial offence, being compelled, on a plea of guilty, to appear before the court, and I welcome this Clause because I am satisfied that in many of these cases men have lost their jobs by being compelled to absent themselves from their employment in order to go to the court which has jurisdiction over the offence. Further, I know of cases where the accused person has come to the court himself, he has been compelled to come owing to the nature of the offence, and has tendered his plea of "not guilty." He has thereupon been informed by the judge that the case would be suspended for two or three days when evidence would be taken. Repeatedly justice has been defeated in many of these cases because the accused person, who may have a perfect answer to the charge, says that rather than waste any more time about it he would plead guilty. I welcome the definite advantages contained in Clause 5 in so far as these points are concerned, but I earnestly hope that the Solicitor-General for Scotland will pay attention


to the criticisms that have been made with regard to the points on which the Bill fails, and that between now and the next stage he will make an effort to meet those criticisms.

10.26 p.m.

Mr. Goldie: It may truly be said that only an ignorant Sassenach would interfere in Scottish affairs, where angels fear to tread. My only excuse for interfering is that I happen to be of Scottish descent, and that there are one or two anomalies in the Bill to which I think the attention of hon. Members ought to be drawn. I will pass immediately to Clause 7, which frankly I fail to understand. Under one of the sections of the Prevention of Crime Act, no person under the age of 17 years shall be deemed to be convicted of an offence for which he is likely to be sentenced to imprisonment. That cannot apply to Borstal treatment, because the minimum age for Borstal is 17, in England. It must mean the giving of some power to the courts to commit to approved schools. With the greatest respect, I would like to warn the Solicitor-General for Scotland of a provision of which very few Members of the House may know in the Children's Act, in which power is given not to an assize court or to the quarter sessions, or whatever may be their equivalent in Scotland, but to the local police court, to commit a young person to Borstal for a period of two years, as distinct from three years, which is the period recommended by the Court of Criminal Appeal for a child who has absconded from an approved school. The law in Scotland in that respect may be more fortunate or more unfortunate, but in England there is no power to commit a person under the age of 17 to Borstal. If this Clause is an attempt to get children into Borstal, on the desirability of which I express no opinion, I would warn the Solicitor-General to have regard for a section of the Children's Act which makes it possible for a police court to send children there.
With regard to Clause 10 of the Bill, I listened to the most humane speech of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). As a member of the English Bar, I would like to utter a word of warning to my hon. and learned Friends who are members of the Scottish Bar, I say to them, "Look out what you do

under that Clause." It should be left absolutely to the Crown to prove its case, and to prove it to the hilt. In a civil court it is always possible to admit facts, but in a criminal court there is nothing which it is more dangerous to do, from the point of view of the interests of one's client, than to admit anything. I would like to tell the House of one experience I had as a young man in the civil court which I have never forgotten. I was acting for a man who had been sued on a promissory note by a moneylender. As a young barrister having almost his first case, I sat up all night working out a marvellous cross-examination of the moneylender. The next morning, I went to the county court, and I was asked, "You admit the note, do you not?" Being young I said, "Yes," and I heard the words, "Then it is for my learned friend to begin"; and the whole of my cross-examination was rendered useless, for the moneylender did not go into the witness-box as a result of my youthful admission. Realise what this means
In any trial on indictment it shall not be necessary for the prosecutor or the accused to lead proof of any fact which is admitted by the other party.
I have recently been concerned in a case in which a man's life depended on a question of distance from one point to another. It is very easy, not knowing what is going to be said by the prosecution, to make an admission that the distance from point A to point B was a mile when it was, in fact, a mile and a-half. You are laying up untold trouble for those who have to defend criminals in Scotland if you try and make the criminal procedure there analogous to the civil procedure. The criminal law of Scotland is a subject on which I have no expert knowledge, but I venture to suggest to those who know more about these matters than I do that it would be much better to leave the law as it is in England. If you admit facts in a civil court no real harm is done, but do not imperil the safety of clients by any admission in a criminal case the results of which nobody can foresee.

10.32 p.m.

Mr. Foot: I want to support the plea that has been made by the two hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite. A certain number of comparisons have been made between the systems of criminal law in Scotland and in England. Even in the English criminal law, where you have a


trial on indictment at the assizes, it is not completely necessary to prove every formal matter. There is a system under which certain formal depositions may be read at the assizes if the person giving the depositions has given evidence on oath before the justices. When, as sometimes happens in a manslaughter case, you have the plan of a road, it is not necessary, if a witness has proved it before the justices, that he should be present at the assizes unless his attendance is required. Instead of that his depositions may be read by the clerk of assize. This is a very convenient arrangement; it saves expense and obviates the attendance of the witness at the trial. Where there is an arrangement of that kind in the English courts it is open to the defence, if they think fit, to require the attendance of the witness at the assizes, or wherever the trial may be.
The only difficulty, which I intimated in my interruption of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General for Scotland, which I see about Clause 10 is that, as it is drafted, it might not be possible for the defence to say that they want the witness to be present if an admission has been made. I assume that in the operation of this Clause the admission might be made by the accused person or on his behalf before the trial actually took place, but, as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Warrington (Mr. Goldie) has said, it constantly happens that considerations crop up in criminal proceedings which have not been foreseen and the evidence of some witness to prove what has seemed a small point suddenly becomes a matter of great importance. It would be unfortunate if, as a result of the way in which this Clause is drafted, it could then be said for the defence, "You have made the admission and you have to stand by it." I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General for Scotland will seriously consider the form of this Clause before we go into Committee.

10.35 p.m.

Mr. R. Gibson: I have not much to say in this Debate, but I feel that the effect of this Bill will be to bring the law very much into conformity with the practice. As to Clause II, I cannot recall any prosecutions of the nature referred to there. With regard to Clause 10, we have had the benefit of a considerable volume of advice from South of the Border. Our

system of criminal law in Scotland is quite different from that South of the Border. It is a little difficult for a Scotsman to follow what has been said by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) with regard to evidence being given twice in a criminal prosecution. We do not have such procedure in Scotland. There is the further difference that in Scotland the Lord Advocate is in charge of the administration of the criminal law, whereas in England I understand that prosecutions are of a private nature—at least they can be of a private nature in misdemeanours and lesser offences; but that is not the case in Scotland.

Mr. Goldie: In indictable offences, save in most exceptional cases, the prosecution is always a public one. In small cases in the police courts there may be private prosecutions.

Mr. Gibson: In regard to High Court procedure, at present we have to prove everything in the Scottish Courts, and there is a great deal in what the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine Hill) said. A great part of the day may be spent in providing the most formal proof of certain things, and so far as one can see the necessity for that might be dispensed with if the defence were willing to give admissions. Of course there is nothing to compel the defence to admit anything at all. I think some qualification must be put upon what the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Cassells) said about there being a difficulty in the way of the prosecution making any reference to a failure to give admission. When he was speaking about a prosecutor not being allowed to refer in court to the fact that the accused had failed to give evidence, that is a matter of express statutory enactment, and to bring that point in here I think it would be necessary to amend Clause 10 so as to make it impossible for the prosecution to make any comment at all on any admission which is given by the defence. I do not wish to say anything with regard to summary procedure, except that there is a little difficulty in my mind about the words "at any subsequent time" in Subsection (1) of Clause 3. I take it that what is meant is any subsequent time during the period when part of the fine is unpaid. I think the wording might be altered to make that quite clear. The Bill


in general should prove of very great advantage in practice.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. T. Henderson: I have a question to put to the Solicitor-General for Scotland arising out of something which happened a few days ago. I put a question to the Lord Advocate in regard to a man who was fined in a court and lived 120 miles away. It was a very small fine, and he sent a postal order to pay it, but it was refused. He had to travel the 120 miles in person. I want to know whether such a case as that is dealt with by Clause 2. As I read that Clause, the fine would be paid in the place where the man resides instead of his having to appear in person 120 miles away. I should like the Solicitor-General to answer this question, and to inform me whether it is legal for a court in Scotland to refuse acceptance of a postal order in payment of a fine?

10.42 p.m.

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The Debate has not proceeded on party lines, and it is therefore easier for me to assure the House that all the suggestions which have been made will be most carefully considered. Many of them may be capable of modification. Probably it will best serve the purpose of hon. Members who have made so many helpful suggestions if I promise that those suggestions will be carefully considered between now and the Committee stage, rather than that I should attempt to reply to them in detail. I am accordingly proposing to deal with them only in a general way.
Hon. Members have suggested that Clause 1 is too wide. We will, of course, look into that suggestion, but our intention was that, except in certain particulars, the Clause should be the same as the Clause in the English Act. I think that that was in fact what was done. I recognise that the supervision proposal has been criticised from several points of view. Frankly, our adoption of supervision for adults is of an experimental character. It has been adopted in England, and no objection has been taken so far. It seemed a suitable method to have in reserve to use in a case where a court thought it desirable. I recognise that there is a possibility of the system being of use in some cases. A question arose relating to Clause 7. So far as I can

gather I correctly stated the law of Scotland.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to answer my question as to what precisely happens to these youths between 16 and 17?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: Since the Children Act raised the age of imprisonment from 16 to 17, I think the only method of dealing with a boy who cannot be sent to Borstal is by sending him to an approved school. In other cases we have Borstal as an alternative, and the ordinary remedy is to put him on probation.
The main Debate has turned on the proposal of Clause 10, and I venture to think there has been some little misapprehension about how that Clause would work out in practice. It is not contemplated that in all cases, or even in the majority of cases, there would be a minute of admission. I could quite appreciate the criticisms of hon. and learned Members if it were contemplated that that method of making admissions would ever become a general one, to be used in the majority of cases. Then there might be some danger that a person who refused to make an admission would suffer from prejudice. But if it is an exceptional procedure, only followed in a comparatively small proportion of cases, I cannot see how there can be any suggestion of prejudice because a person has not seen fit to make any admission. Nor do I see how it is going to make the Crown authorities careless in preparing or presenting their case.
The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Cassells) has mentioned a case that he had in which two days were wasted, and I think the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine Hill) had a similar experience. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) will be well aware that under present conditions the number of cases taken by solemn procedure in Scotland is very large in the course of a year, and if in a dozen or two dozen, or even three dozen cases, this procedure were used in the course of a year, they would form but a very small proportion of the total number of cases taken by solemn procedure. If it were going to save a day or two days even in 10 or 20 cases every year, I think it would be well worth while


for the House to pass a Clause which had that effect. We shall, of course, consider the views which have been expressed, but I venture to think, looking at our methods of preparing cases, that the provision would have no ill effect. The Crown prepares its case fully before the indictment is served, and it is not until after the indictment is served that admissions would be made. Therefore, I cannot see how the making of admissions would in any way prejudice the preparation of the case.
The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Mr. Fyfe) raised a point about postal orders. I do not think that any difficulty in an ordinary case has been met with in using postal orders for payment. The hon. Member who spoke last raised a particular case where, I think, there was some misunderstanding, and the position there was not that a postal order was tendered in payment of a fine which had been already imposed, but it was sent by a man to be used for any fine that might be imposed upon him. You cannot impose hard-and-fast rules on courts that in every circumstances they must proceed in a man's absence, and it may well be that in the case referred to there was some misunderstanding which brought the man to Oban when he need not have come. It is better to risk an occasional misunderstanding than to bring in hard-and-fast rules which might in certain circumstances be extremely embarrassing.
I fully appreciate the weight of the criticisms of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) about methods of prosecution, but I very much doubt whether any magistrate's decisions at Glasgow are really influenced against the accused by the fact that the prosecutor happens to wear uniform and therefore the only real prejudice is that the accused person who is not represented by someone may feel it rather difficult to put forward his case. I should not have thought that Glasgow people were as a general rule so terrorised by a police uniform as to feel much embarrassed, but I appreciate that there is a point for consideration, and I will also bear in mind the suggestion of the hon. Member for West Derby in that connection. My remarks about the undesirability of general rules cover the other questions that the hon. Member put. Accordingly I think I can ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading on the

footing that all the criticisms that have been made will be most carefully considered before the Bill goes to Committee.

Orders of the Day — CONVEYANCING AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

10.54 p.m.

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill is shorter and less contentious than the one we have just been discussing. It arises in a somewhat similar way. After the passage of time a certain number of weak points have become apparent and it is necessary to bring in a Bill to deal with them. The last general overhaul of our system of conveyancing took place in 1924, when a pretty comprehensive Act was passed. It has worked well, but in the intervening period there have been discovered a certain number of points which have not been covered, and that is not surprising, looking at the complexity of the system. Accordingly, several years ago, the legal societies in Scotland began to examine a number of suggestions for the amendment of the law. They set up a joint committee, which prepared an elaborate report; then a draft Bill was prepared; and then further criticism of that draft Bill was made, both by that joint committee and by a number of other interested persons. As a result, the present Bill was put into shape. I think I am entitled to say that there is nothing in the Bill to which any objection in principle has been taken. It may be that certain persons have thought that some other points which could be dealt with in the Bill have been omitted, but we thought it best to proceed only with those points on which there was substantial unanimity in the legal profession. We have framed this Bill on that footing, and we believe that the objects which it seeks to carry out are desirable, and that the methods it will adopt are the best that can be devised, looking to the number of persons who have given their assistance in the preparation of the Measure. Therefore, I will in a very few


words explain the main purposes of the Bill.
The first Clause is for the purpose of saving expense, by saving unnecessary applications to the court in connection with the disposal of heritable estate in certain cases. The second Clause is also for the purpose of saving expense, by shortening deeds in certain cases. The 1924 Act went a very long way in this connection, but we think that we now see our way to go a step further. I will not go into the technicalities of the third Clause, but it is, I think, the only point where we found that in 1924 we went rather too far, and a change which was then made appeared likely to be of very little benefit, and of possible prejudice to a number of people. Therefore, by common consent, we are proposing to take a very short step backwards, because there was no benefit in the step which we took forward.

Mr. Mathers: What was the step?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: It had to do with real warrandice. If the hon. Member wants real warrandice explained, that might be done in Committee. The fourth Clause has to do with Acts of Parliament in the fifteenth century. The Act of 1924 dealt specifically only with an Act of 1617. Doubts have been expressed since as to whether it was not necessary to deal with these Acts of the fifteenth century. In order to set those doubts at rest, that is now being done. Clause 5 is almost entirely a matter of re-drafting. A considerable alteration was made in the law of 1924 to deal with the law of terce and courtesy, and this deals with that. Clause 6 deals with the remedy when a feu duty is not paid—the remedy of taking back the land—and puts the procedure in that respect in rather better case than at present. Clause 7 is again mere redrafting, and the eighth Clause is for the removal of prohibitions of subinfeudation. There were certain people 100 years or more ago who thought of introducing something like English ideas. An Act of 1874 prevented further extension of these prohibitions. This Clause is for the purpose of finishing the job by abolishing what took place before.
Clause 9 deals with the right of preemption, and reduces the time in which that right can be exercised, thereby facilitating the making of transactions. Clause

10 deals with the rights of representatives of widows entitled to the £500 which they get if their husbands die intestate, and the Clause is intended to put right a certain difficulty in procedure that has occurred in that respect. Clause 11 deals with a peculiarity of our law—the holograph will. The House will be aware that in Scotland you can make your Will by writing it out in your own hand and signing it, when it is valid without witnesses. Certain difficulties have occurred in the proof of these documents to which there were no witnesses, and some doubt was thrown some time ago on the old-established method of proving these documents. Accordingly, it was thought right to pass this Clause to validate the old practice before this decision was given. An entirely new practice has now been adopted, so that the Clause is really validating only certain things which occured in the past.
I commend the Bill to the House as containing a series of small points, it is true, but points which inevitably are of very considerable importance. I think that I can say that the opinion of the legal profession in Scotland is that when once we adopt these small Amendments there will be very little wrong with our present system of conveyancing.

11.4 p.m.

Mr. Johnston: The proper time at night to take a Measure of this kind is now, after a long and weary day, and the proper time for the Solicitor-General for Scotland to explain this Measure is 11 p.m. It certainly is not a Measure which lends itself to Second Reading speeches, and we do not propose to make speeches. My hon. and learned Friend sitting behind me assures me that there is nothing politically contentious about the Bill, but if there should be, we shall be sure to raise it on the Committee stage.

Orders of the Day — SCOTTISH LAND COURT BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

11.5 p.m.

Mr. Elliot: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
Fortunately this Bill is still shorter and still less contentious than the last one, and it has the additional advantage of being simpler. It has been the practice in the past for members of the Land Court, as distinct from the Chairman, to retire at the age of 65, and appointments of members have been made on this condition, with a written condition attached to the appointment. It was assumed that the attachment of this condition was in conformity with the Act of 1911, under which the Scottish Land Court was set up, but last year it was decided by the Court of Session that such a condition was ultra vires the administration, as there was no specific provision to that effect in the Statute. Consequently, we come to Parliament for an Act declaring that members of the Scottish Land Court retire on reaching the age of 65 years, as has been the practice in the past. I think perhaps it is unnecessary to go into the matter further now, although I shall be glad to answer any questions that any hon. Member desires to put. On the Committee stage there will be an opportunity of going further into the Bill.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Is the Land Court appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland?

Mr. Elliot: The Land Court consists of a Chairman and three members appointed by His Majesty on the recommendation of the Secretary of State for Scotland.

11.6 p.m.

Mr. Johnston: We understand this Measure, as it has been privately explained to us and as we have read about it in the Press. It arises over difficulties experienced in the retiral of one gentleman and the Court of Session's decision as to his pension. It is a small matter, and we reserve any points of disputation until the Committee stage.

11.7 p.m.

Mr. Davidson: I would like an explanation of that part of the Bill which says that, providing any existing member of the court who has not attained the age of 65 on the passing of the Act gives within three months written notice to the Secretary of State, the Superannuation Act shall apply to him. Does that mean that any member who has not reached the age of 65 but who feels that he can no longer

serve in this court will automatically be allowed to apply for superannuation?

Mr. Elliot: He will come under the provisions of the Superannuation Act, and he will receive superannuation in proportion to his length of service.

11.8 p.m.

Mr. Maxton: Since the hon. Members above the Gangway are not opposing this Bill on Second Reading, I do not propose to take on the responsibility of opposing it myself. But I think there is something in the way of a precedent being set up here, where it is being laid down now specifically in an Act of Parliament that 65 is the upward age limit at which a man is capable of exercising judicial functions. I hope the right hon. Gentleman is not going to tell us that, if 66 is too old for a man to serve on the Land Court, 70, 80, or 90 is a reasonable age for a man to serve in the other courts. There is no requirement that the Chairman of the Land Court, whose responsibilities are greater than those of his junior assessors, should retire at 65. The Chairman may go on as long as life remains within his body. As long as he is capable of tottering into the court, he can go on, but we are laying down that the other men must resign at 65. I cannot see the point. A Judge of the High Court or a Judge of the Court of Session, who has to sit upon an infinite variety of cases, may be 70, 80, or 90. I do not know what age some of them are, but I know there have been extraordinary cases of longevity among Judges of the High Court. It seems to me that if this precedent is to be established in the case of these men, then it has to be extended over the whole judicial system.

Mr. Elliot: I hope the hon. Gentleman will not take it that a precedent is being set up here. These gentlemen are in a different position from judges to whom the hon. Member refers. It is necessary for them to travel about the country and as the hon. Member knows they have to go to very wild parts of the country in the course of their duties. I do not think this can be regarded as a precedent in the sense suggested by the hon. Member. It must be regarded as sui generis.

Orders of the Day — SCOTTISH LAND COURT [MONEY].

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision with regard to the tenure of office and superannuation of members of the Scottish Land Court, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of fixed retiring allowances to members other than the Chairman, or of the expenditure incurred in the application to such members of the Superannuation Acts, 1834 to 1935, in like

manner as if these Acts had applied prior to their appointment."—(King's recommendation signified.)—[Mr. Elliot.]

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter after Eleven o'Clock.